


A Long Ten Years

by NightLightning21



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Harry Styles Loves Louis Tomlinson, Larry Stylinson Is Real, Louis Tomlinson Loves Harry Styles, M/M, larry stylinson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightLightning21/pseuds/NightLightning21
Summary: Louis Tomlinson knows just how much the fans want One Direction to reunite. He’d be kidding himself if he said he didn’t want it as well. There’s just one problem: he’s fairly sure he never wants to see Harry Styles again. They’re breakup destroyed him. And he’s gotten away with that for three years more or less. But now it's 2020, and a certain 10 year reunion is about to throw everything up in the air again.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 22
Kudos: 155





	1. Chapter 1

A Long Ten Years 

Chapter 1

Louis Tomlinson often finds himself thinking back to his days in One Direction. Perhaps not with nostalgia, per say. It seems like it’s too soon to be looking back with nostalgia. It’s more like… with a feeling of neutrality. Now that he’s been out for over three years, he finally has a chance to glance back at the wild road.  
More than once, he’s found himself on YouTube, clicking on old One Direction videos just out of curiosity. It’s not like he has much else to do. Everything has grinded to a halt because of quarantine. Sure, he’s writing new songs and coming up with the feel of his sophomore album but he can only do that so many hours in a day. Quarantine has slowed his life down more than he ever thought possible.  
Still, he’s busy, very busy. He’s got plenty to do. He cleans up his house a bit, does some organizing and just generally becomes more comfortable in his living space. And then he thinks some more. About lots of things. What tracks he should include in his next album. What he should have for dinner. And as a certain tenth anniversary approaches, Louis finds himself thinking more and more about One Direction.  
Everyday he wakes up and finds more rumors about a reunion. He’d actually talked to Liam about that the other day, warning his bandmate not to reveal too much.  
“But Louis, isn’t it a good thing that the fans are getting so riled up?” Liam had asked as they chatted on the phone.  
“It is good,” Louis explained. “It really is, but I think you’re starting to overhype it a bit. I mean, what’ve we got planned right now? A greatest hits album. Trust me, that’s not gonna live up to all of the expectations.”  
“Yeah, I guess so. Niall was saying that we should release a song on the anniversary and then sing it live once quarantine is over.” Louis nods in acknowledgment. Actually, it was an idea that had been bouncing around the group for the last two weeks.  
“But I’m also not sure how everything will work with tours and everything. I know you and Niall had to postpone and all. And, oh wait, hang on I don’t remember Harry’s deal,” Liam had said, before he hung up to go and find out that very information. That had all been fine with Louis, because as soon as the word “Harry” had been said, he’d felt like curling into a ball and crying for three solid days.  
It’s been a week since that conversation, and still, all of the gossip sites are living for Liam’s words. Louis wakes up and quickly checks his phone for any important notifications. He sees some twitter notifications and a couple of messages from Niall. A few from other friends as well. He groans and forces his tired body out of his oh so appealing blankets. He’s only dressed in a pair of shorts, as the LA weather has been quite unbreakable for the past few weeks. What he wouldn’t give to be in England right now.  
“Right, breakfast,” he says out loud, mostly to prove his voice still exists. He’s not living with anybody, even the dogs are with El right now. Louis isn’t even supposed to be in LA, but he’d put off returning to London so now he was stuck in the US. He wanders down to his kitchen, still shirtless, and opens his fridge. It’s fairly barren, and not for the first time, Louis curses at the fact that he still can’t cook. Still, he can do a slice of toast right? Maybe without burning it and setting his toaster and potholders on fire? Perhaps, although the day is still young.  
Louis pops the bread in and takes a minute to respond to his texts. Niall just messaged him about some cute puppies he’d found on Instagram and he has a few texts from one of his producers.  
Finally, because the silence had seemed so lonely, Louis turned the radio on. An old Ed Sheeran song starts blasting through his kitchen while Louis prepares tea and butter for his toast.  
He’s just setting the slices down on a plate when Ed Sheeran is abruptly cut off and his phone starts ringing rather obnoxiously. When Louis glances over, he sees a FaceTime request from Liam. Louis groans and answers it, taking a large bite of his toast while he slides to accept the call.  
“What? Oh, hey Louis!” Liam’s smiling face is clear through the small screen and Louis gives him a halfhearted grin.  
“You look tired,” Liam notes through the phone.  
“Why thank you Liam. And you look shaggy,” Louis retorts, letting loose some of the sarcasm that he hasn’t been able to express in a long while.  
“I’ll have you know that Sophia thinks it looks sexy,” Liam says, although his eyes are sparkling with amusement. Louis sighs and rolls his eyes fondly at his friend. Sure, he and Liam have their differences, but he’s always been there for Louis.  
“What’s up?” Louis asks, because he knows his toast is getting cold.  
“Mm, right. I was talking with Niall last night. We were discussing a bit more about releasing a new song. He thinks it might be enough for the fans.” Liam takes a sip of his own tea and gives Louis a moment to think.  
“I dunno, mate. I mean, what would it be? Like just a one off single?” Liam just shrugs in response.  
“I’m not sure. Niall said he thinks Zayn might be down to record a song.”  
“Maybe to record but there’s no way in hell he’ll perform it live,” Louis responds, and well, okay maybe that was a touch too harsh. Still, Louis maintains that he has every reason to be upset with Zayn.  
“Maybe not, but it would still be a big step forward,” Liam says, with a pleading note entering his voice. Louis recognizes that all too well.  
“Look, I’m all for recording a new single. And I think it’d do justice to One Direction’s image. But do you know if everyone’s down for it?” Louis decides to just start eating so he takes another large bite of his toast, but it’s a bit cold now.  
“I am, Niall is. I think the number I have for Zayn is current. I might call him later, see if we can work something out. Dunno about Harry. ‘Spose we can have a group skype later or something,” Liam mumbles around a mouthful of scone. Louis nods and pushes down the familiar wave of regret and pain at hearing his former boyfriend’s name. In a way, Louis supposes this quarantine has a silver lining. Nobody is asking One Direction to reunite in person. Which means he can keep his promise to himself a little bit longer.  
“What? No, no it’s fine,” Liam calls out to someone out of Louis’ sight. He turns back to the screen and picks his phone up. “Hey Lou, I gotta go. Think about the single, alright? Talk to you later,” Liam says before hitting the end call button and leaving Louis’ phone back on the radio. This time it’s not Ed Sheeran playing. It actually takes Louis a moment to recognize the song but when he does, another dull wave of pain crashes over him. It’s Adore You. God must really hate him or something.  
Sometimes, well okay most of the time, it astonishes Louis how one person, one voice, one touch can still bring back so much pain even from more than four years ago. God has it really been that long? Louis does some mental math and realizes that it truly has been almost five years since the breakup. Louis can still feel the coldness of that November day, so long ago now.  
He clears his head of the rather depressing thoughts by jumping into the shower and taking the time to apply shampoo to his semi-long hair. He’d been one of the fortunate ones, having got a haircut just four days before the salons closed. Still, it’s been a couple of months now and his hair is getting long again. He’d actually been thinking about cutting it short, more like he’d had it in 2013. Still, it works for now. He gets out of the shower and quickly towels off his body before brushing his hair back a bit and letting it dry naturally. It’s not like he’s seeing anybody today.  
“Well except through a phone,” he says to himself as he makes his way to the master. His laptop is sitting on his bedside table and he grabs on the way down to the living room. It’s rather quiet though, just working on his laptop so he turns the tv on. After searching for a while, he finds an old rerun of Grey’s Anatomy. Well, there’s nothing else on so he settles.  
He starts playing around on his laptop while half listening to the tv and wondering what exactly he should do to be productive today. He supposes he could write some. He turns the tv off and goes to grab his guitar. It’s currently lying in its case next to the piano and he runs his fingers over the strings as he plucks out a few chords. After the hiatus, Louis had dedicated a fair amount of time to becoming a better musician, instrument wise. He’d hunkered down and greatly improved his guitar and piano skills. Sure, he’s no Niall but he gets by.  
He pulls out his journal and looks at the last song he’d been working on. He knows he wants to go deeper with this second album. His first had been comfortable for him. Sure, Louis wrote the songs and they were genuinely him, but they were parts of him already broadcast to the world. Louis knows he’d held back some with his first album, and so did the critics. It had been a proper blow when he’d seen some of the reviews. But a part of him couldn’t help but agree. He’d not wanted to go so deep that his music would be unrecognizable. But now he’s learned a thing or two. Now he wants to explore those parts of himself he’d worked so hard to hide ever since 2011.  
He plays softly as he looks over the lyrics he’d been working on.

“How was I supposed to know  
the stories that you never told?  
But then, I guess I’m guilty too  
I can’t shake you

It’s been four long years since we fell down  
Four long years and I’m still on the ground  
Waiting for you to come around again and say ‘I want you back’”

Louis can hear his own voice cracking and he knows that this one will be an absolute nightmare to record. If he can even get through it, that is. He switches to developing the instrumental part of the track and finds he likes the switch from D to A on the main chorus. He makes a quick recording of what he has so far and pens a few more verses for the song. It’s not like it’s hard to write. Each verse is born from a memory, and Louis describes them with every detail he can possibly muster.

“The coldness in the air outside was nothing  
To the coldness seeping through my heart, that day  
And the pain never quite went away

Even a drink can’t wash away your smile  
The bottle can’t erase your eyes  
It’s not fine, anymore,” he sings as he scribbles down some more words. He’s in the middle of writing the bridge when his phone starts buzzing annoyingly on the couch. He walks over and sees that it’s a group FaceTime. Liam must be more bored than Louis had originally thought.  
“Hey lads,” he says as he accepts the call. It’s just Niall and Liam right now and they both greet him warmly.  
“Hope we weren’t interrupting something important, Lou,” Niall mumbles around a sandwich.  
“Why of course, I was right smack dab in the middle of doing nothing,” Louis sasses, flipping his hair away from his face.  
“Louis needs a friend. He needs someone to bully,” Liam teases, flashing Louis a smug grin. Louis just flips him off.  
“Okay, why did you two losers call me?” he asks.  
“We had something we wanted to discuss,” Niall says. But when Louis opens his mouth to ask, Liam is already explaining.  
“We’ll tell you once everyone is here,” Liam says. Louis nods once before he realizes what Liam had actually said. They were waiting for Harry. He bites his lip and debates ending the call right now and claiming his wifi had glitched. But then, he hears his mother’s voice inside his head telling him to man up and stop hiding. And of course that wins out over anything. So he stays and waits the extra four minutes for someone else to enter the call.  
“Hey guys, sorry I’m late. I had to take the turnovers out of the oven,” Harry says, in a voice that flips Louis’ insides. But he’s also a fairly damn good actor and he keeps his face passive as Niall and Liam both begin talking.  
“Liam and I were saying that it would be really cool to release a full length album for the anniversary,” Niall says. And before either Louis or Harry can protest, Liam is already there to explain yet again.  
“Niall and I were thinking it could be something like ‘One Direction: Unreleased’ or something. Where we release all of the old singles that were like, only for Target or something, as well as a few new songs,” Liam explains, apparently very eager to get all of the words out before Louis can blow him off. Louis and Harry both fall silent and think about the proposal. And well… maybe it’s not such a bad idea. Sure, it kinda felt like a cop out to say they’re releasing a full length album and then only have a few new songs, but Louis supposes it could be a whole lot worse.  
“I mean, yeah I suppose we could do that,” Harry eventually says. “Might be a nice way to like, thank the fans and stuff.”  
“Louis?” Liam asks, because even there is no definitive leader, Louis might be the closest thing the band has ever had.  
“Em, well I’m open to the idea. Would we just write new songs before the tenth anniversary?”  
“Yeah, I figure that since restrictions are being lifted and we’re all in LA we could meet up and do a proper band meeting. Maybe talk logistics and stuff and then do a bit of writing.” Liam seems rather excited by the whole thing and Niall also seems perfectly content with it all. Harry doesn’t respond right away which gives Louis precious seconds to think. And, maybe he could do that. Just a little time with his lads, with a bit of singing thrown in there. He’ll have to face Harry though. But faced with the actual prospect of being able to reject seeing Harry, something inside of Louis sort of snaps. He’ll have to see the other man again if One Direction will ever have a future.  
“I suppose,” he says as he runs a hand through his unstyled hair. Harry seems genuinely surprised for a moment but soon enough he adds his own confirmation.  
“Great, when do you all want to meet?”  
“Oh, let me check my busy calendar,” Louis retorts, but everybody knows he’s just teasing.  
“Alright, well we have less than two months to get all of this ready. So I say we start planning as soon as possible,” Niall finally chips in. “What about this coming Saturday?” the Irish singer suggests. Louis does a quick mental check and realizes, rather unsurprisingly, that he has nothing going on.  
“Yeah, works for me.”  
“Me too.”  
“Yeah I can do that.” Liam then asks where they’ll meet. Louis doesn’t answer and neither does Niall.  
“We can do it at my place,” Harry finally offers. Liam and Niall quickly agree and they all agree to see each other that Saturday at Harry’s place. Louis nods along, almost robotically as they end the call. He then proceeds to toss his phone away from the couch to a nearby chair. God, he has four days to prepare to go to Harry’s house and finally see his ex-boyfriend again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
Panic is what is going through Louis Tomlinson’s mind the moment he wakes up on Saturday morning. He’s even more tired than usual, and he’s certain that he didn’t get the proper amount of sleep for a person. Probably because he spent the entire night tossing and turning while his past demons haunted him. Always lots of fun.  
He forces himself to get out of bed, well eventually. He ends up totally ignoring his phone, because he simply wants to disconnect for as long as possible. He’s sick and tired of all of the rumors still being spread about the band. As he gets into the shower, he starts heavily debating what he should wear today. Should he go fun and playful? Or should he stick with more business casual? God, sometimes these decisions are so hard. Even if it’s just clothes, Louis knows the significance they can have. He runs a hand through his sopping wet hair and pulls a clean towel off the rack. He steps out and dries off and decides to style his hair for once. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t show Harry that he’s just dandy and all laughs and smiles.  
As it turns out though, Louis has kind of forgotten how to style his hair. He blow dries it and then adds a bit of product and quiffs it up. As he glances into the mirror, it’s like he’s looking at his 2013 self. It’s actually quite a refreshing change, to be clean shaven for the first time in a long while. Louis loves his bit of stubble, but he has always held a fondness for the clean cut look.  
He eventually decides that the hairstyle is the best he’s gonna get and goes down to the kitchen for some food. His stomach is churning though, and Louis realizes that eating a large breakfast is probably not for the best right now. He pulls his fridge open and decides that it’s a bit pathetic to just have beer so he steers away from it and grabs eggs instead. Now, Louis is no master chef, but he is capable of scrambling an egg. Sort of.  
“Aw, whatever,” he says to himself when it’s revealed that he’d burnt the egg on the pan. So he’ll order another one off of amazon, big deal. He manages to salvage most of it and he plates it and takes it over to his table with his morning tea.  
He eventually decides to just face the music and opens his iPad. The first thing that pops up is a notification from the Daily Mail. He groans out loud but decides to open it, nonetheless. The headline reads, “ONE DIRECTION FEUD?!?!? LIAM PAYNE AND LOUIS TOMLINSON HATE EACH OTHER???” It would be almost laughable if it weren’t so annoying. Louis debates tweeting something to assuage fears but ultimately decides against it. He feels like that’s just playing right into their hand. It’s not like Daily Mail would ever say they were wrong. They would just publish a new story about how Louis and Liam had resolved their problem and were bros again. And Louis isn’t about to give them the satisfaction of ad revenue on their stories about him.  
It had been decided by the four of them to keep the Saturday meeting a secret. They hadn’t wanted to spread the word too much about their plans just yet. That’s why the meeting would just be the four of them. No producers, no managers. Nobody else but the band. Louis is grateful for that.  
Louis mostly wastes time until he has to leave for the meeting. Lunch consists of leftover pizza from a couple nights ago and beer. He watches YouTube while he eats and spends another half hour just sitting at his kitchen table watching James Corden.  
Matter of fact, he gets so distracted that he’s late to leave. A glance at his clock tells him that it’s almost one. Which means he’s going to show up either right on time or late. Louis runs upstairs and grabs his phone and wallet and keys. He grabs a plain gray hoodie and a pair of sunglasses before bolting back downstairs to his car. He turns the car on and pulls out of the driveway onto the street. He takes off for Harry’s house, navigating mindlessly through the streets of LA. He turns on his Spotify playlists as he drives and finds himself softly singing along to Ariana Grande as he drives.  
His improved mood dissipates when he spots the familiar house just up the road. He turns off his music as he pulls into Harry’s driveway. He sees that Niall and Liam are already there. Yup, he’s late. Oops. Whatever, it’s not like they were expecting any different of him.  
He approaches the front door and wonders whether he should knock or not. When he and Harry had been together, their homes had practically been one. They lived at both and switched whenever it was convenient. As he stands there and thinks, he’s suddenly relieved of having to make a choice when the door flings open to reveal Niall. The brunette smiles widely when he sees Louis.  
“Ah, Louis. Wondered when you’d get your arse here,” Niall jokes as they both head to Harry’s backyard, making sure to keep a solid amount of space between the two of them.  
“What’s been up with you?” Louis asks. Because it’s been months since he actually saw Niall in person.  
“I’ve been pretty good. Quarantine is boring, but that’s everybody’s problem. Been working out some lately.”  
“I know, mate. I’ve seen your Instagram stories. And the dumb thing you do whenever you look in a mirror,” Louis remarks, flashing Niall a mischievous grin.  
“I think it’s hip,” Niall retorts as they stop off at Harry’s kitchen. Sure enough, there’s a variety of snacks and other baked goods because Harry is just such a perfect host. Niall loads up, for what Louis presumes in the second time, and they both head out to the backyard.  
Louis sucks in a breath as he sees the two men already sitting out there. Harry has short hair again, right Louis had known that. But it seems like the other singer had been having the same ideas as Louis because he’s clean shaven again and his curls look more like 2013 Harry than 2020 Harry. Louis is suddenly slammed with a wave of nostalgia.  
“Hey Niall, hello Louis,” Harry greets slowly. Niall plops down in his chair and pops a crisp in his mouth.  
“Louis, nice of you to show up,” Liam teases. But Louis is not one to get roasted without firing back.  
“Yeah well, schedules are not fun. And not all of us can be the boring one,” he shoots back as he throws a grape at Liam.   
“You’re acting like eight year olds,” Harry says, rolling his eyes at the two of them. Louis would normally feign hurt and be all dramatic but he just doesn’t have it in him to do that with Harry right now. Liam sure, Niall he’s all for, but his dynamic with Harry has shifted so dramatically that Louis doesn’t even recognize their relationship.  
“Anybody heard from Zayn?” Niall asks as he eats a cookie. Louis and Harry both shake their heads but Liam pipes up, “I talked to him yesterday.”  
“What’d he say?” Louis asks, genuinely curious. He’d be surprised if Zayn agreed to much of anything.  
“Well, he says he definitely doesn’t want to do a tour right now. He says he might be okay with a greatest hits album or something. I couldn’t get him to commit to new music or anything.”  
“Eh, that’s pretty much what we thought,” Niall says, shrugging it off. Louis agrees with him.  
“Right, so greatest hits. Has that been decided?” Liam asks. Louis knows that it’s he and Harry who need to give final approval on this. To his surprise, Harry speaks right away.  
“I want to do that,” he says, leaving Louis stunned for a moment. It also makes him realize that now he really does have to agree.  
“Yeah, sounds great,” he replies, forcing excitement into his voice. Liam pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil and begins to jot down notes.  
“Right, so we’re thinking about new music right?” Liam confirms. They all nod in agreement, none of them naive enough to think that an album with nothing new would be enough to satisfy fans. Besides, Louis kind of misses hearing the band’s sound.  
“Niall and I were thinking of three new tracks, maybe? I figure, when we announce the album we can have a few singles that we put out. Those can be the new songs.”  
“Wouldn’t some people feel cheated if they listened to all the new songs and then there was nothing else on the album?” Louis asks. Liam and Niall both furrow their eyebrows and think about that for a few moments.  
“What if we were to release popular songs or unreleased songs that most of the fandom has heard as singles. That way they get the world to know them and fans can still have new songs on the album,” Harry suggests. Louis absolutely hates that it’s a good idea.  
“Great idea,” Liam says as he scribbles down more notes. “Right, so maybe our first single for the album will be totally new music. Then the next one or two singles will be old favorites.” The rest of the group nods along. Louis realizes that this is becoming bigger than really any of them expected. But he finds that he relishes the idea of making new music with One Direction. He’d gotten so sick and tired of their sound towards the end, but now, maybe it’s knowing that he has his own career, that he feels differently.  
“Are we writing new tracks?” Niall asks. Louis thinks on that for a moment. They probably wouldn’t even have to. There were plenty of old 1D songs that they never actually recorded.  
“Maybe. Depends if we think we can do it in two months.” Liam glances over at Louis for input. The two of them had been the principal songwriters in the band, after all.  
“I think we can manage maybe two tracks? Then, we can pull from old songs we never recorded,” Louis suggests.  
“Sounds good. Meanwhile, for the old songs we’ll include…” Liam continues talking but Louis sort of tunes him out. He finds himself staring at Harry. His curls are almost hanging in his face and his green eyes are stunning as usual. Louis’ eyes wander down to his toned biceps, just barely hidden by the white t-shirt he’s wearing.  
“Louis what do you think?” Liam asks. Louis snaps his gaze away from Harry and faces Liam again.  
“About what?” he asks sheepishly. Liam rolls his eyes but explains that they were thinking of having No Control on the album. Louis nods in agreement although it’s not like he’s really listening still.  
“Alright, I’m thinking No Control and then Irresistible and Magic for starters,” Liam says, mostly planning with Niall right now. Louis finds that his eyes flick to Harry and to his horror he finds Harry staring right back at him. Louis turns away quickly, but the damage is already done.  
“I was thinking that maybe we could do, um, Nobody Else, remember from Midnight Memories?” Niall asks. Louis narrows his eyes as he tries to remember that song. He gets a flashback of seeing Niall recording a part for the chorus, but he doesn’t remember why the song didn’t end up on the album.  
“Oh yeah, I liked that song. Why didn’t it make the album?” Liam asks.  
“Not sure, I think management thought we had enough softer tracks and wanted something more exciting,” Niall says, shrugging it off and opening another bag of crisps.  
By the end of the meeting, they have around eight songs they’ve put on the list to consider for the album. Some, like No Control and What Makes You Beautiful, Louis definitely remembers. Others, like Irresistible and Nobody Else he barely remembers. Still, they make good progress and everybody promises to think of more songs they’d like to include.  
“Do you think we should be trying to get Zayn in on this?” Niall asks. Louis shifts, rather uncomfortably.  
“I mean, Zayn’s not even in LA is he? We can see what he wants to do. If he wants to record the new songs then great. If not, we recorded a whole album without him,” Liam states, although Louis can see clearly that Liam is unhappy. He knows that Liam and Zayn had been close while they were in the band, and Zayn’s departure had been hard for both of them.  
“Liam, why don’t you see if you can pin Zayn down for something. Just so we can start planning either way,” Harry suggests. Louis feels his chest tighten some at hearing that familiar voice speaking again. He rubs his eyes and tries to focus on the meeting. But he fails, somewhat miserably.  
“Should we meet at the same time next week?” Harry asks.  
“Why don’t we meet twice a week?” Liam suggests. “We have a lot of work to do. Even if we only have three or four new songs. We’ll probably have to start recording before July.”  
“Yeah, good idea,” Louis admits, although he knows full well this will mean seeing Harry twice a week. Still, he’s managed alright at this meeting. He can do it. God, Louis should be given an oscar for his acting job here.  
“Great, well I gotta get home. I have a call with Bear,” Liam says, as he stands up to leave. Harry gets up too, because he’s a good host who will see his guest out. Louis feels a wave of resentment as the two of them leave. Why does Harry have to be so goddamn perfect?  
“Mate, are you and Harry gonna be okay?” Niall asks nervously.  
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Louis replies breezily. But apparently Niall has done some maturing since 2012 because he doesn’t back down.  
“Cut the bs, Lou. Both Liam and I had to actively work to cut back the tension. It was like a standoff out here.”  
“Niall, I said I’d be fine. Harry and I are both professionals. We knew the potential risks when we started a relationship. We know that we have to be civil with each other,” Louis snaps. Niall seems taken aback for a few moments. But then his gaze hardens some and Louis instantly feels a wave of guilt for being to mean to his friend.  
“I may be wrong here, but civility usually requires speaking,” Niall points out icily. Louis doesn’t get a chance to respond though because the brunette is already spinning around and heading towards the door.  
“Niall!” Louis tries, but gets no response. He mentally kicks himself for his attitude towards one of the nicest people on the planet. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair.  
“Oh, you’re still,” a small voice behind him says. Louis whips around and sees Harry staring at him like he’s a bear or something.  
“Uh, yeah. Sorry I should probably get going,” Louis says lamely. He attempts to swallow but apparently all moisture has drained from his throat.  
“Whatever you want,” Harry says as he looks at the ground. He goes and begins to clean up, picking up the chairs and moving them back to his deck. Louis feels like he should be rushing in to help but his body is frozen. Since when did Harry become this deflated, lifeless creature? Since the breakup, a helpful and not at all annoying voice in his head kindly supplies.  
Finally, Louis’ sense of manners kicks in and he helps Harry pick up some wrappers and plates and follows him back into the house.  
“Listen, I thought your idea about the unreleased songs was good,” Louis says, trying to offer an olive branch of sorts. Harry sighs and his shoulders slump. He places the cups on the counter and finally, finally spins around to face Louis.  
“Look, I don’t wanna be rude or anything, but I kinda just wanna be alone right now,” Harry says softly. But it’s like a body blow to Louis. Never, never, has Harry turned down Louis’ company. Even right after they’d broken up and couldn’t stand the sight of each other did Harry kick Louis out of his space. It’s so stunning that Louis just stands there for a few moments longer.  
“Louis?” Harry prompts. Louis shakes his head and forces his thoughts back to the current situation.  
“No, yeah sorry about that. ‘Course I’ll go. I guess I’ve got some songwriting to do at home today. See you next week, Harry,” Louis says as he turns to leave. He’s half expecting Harry to apologize and tell him to stay but it never comes. So instead he finds his way to the front door and opens it. He leaves the house with heavy footsteps and a heavier heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, Chapter 2 people! Having a ton of fun writing this story. Btw this is slightly slow burn, please don’t get mad. Until next time...


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
The days that pass between their Saturday meeting and the next Wednesday one feel both achingly slow and quick as lightning. Louis spends the time going through the One Direction archives and choosing the unreleased songs that he’d like to have on their album. He picks out a few songs that he remembers liking, but it’s kind of shocking just how much he doesn’t remember. When he listens to Another World, he doesn’t even recognize the melody. He could’ve been told it was Justin Bieber’s song and he would’ve believed it. Still, Niall insists on having the track on the album and Louis really has no reason to complain.  
As Wednesday creeps closer, Louis finds that his behavior changes quite drastically. He’s no longer content to just sit on the couch and watch mindless tv shows. Instead, he feels restless, like he just needs to get out and run a hundred miles. And Louis isn’t stupid. He knows it’s because of Harry. God, ever since they’d begun planning that ten year reunion it seems like Louis’ entire mind has been on his ex. Everything in his house reminds him of Harry. It gets to be so much that on Monday he ends up just driving for the entire day, with no real destination in mind. Still, his memories haunt him. Because no matter how hard Louis Tomlinson tries, Harry Styles will always be a part of his life.

January, 2012

Louis wakes up early in the morning, quite an extraordinary feat for him. He glances around the red tour bus and sees Niall and Zayn both asleep in their bunks. He can only assume that Liam is also sleeping, the other brunette being directly under him so Louis can’t exactly see him. Louis hops down from the bed as quietly as possible and heads into the kitchen.  
“Hey,” a soft voice whispers next to him. Louis very nearly jumps out of his skin as he spins around to see Harry tucked up with a blanket on the couch.  
“Harry Styles, you twat! Don’t scare me like that,” Louis admonishes, trying to get his heartbeat back into a normal rhythm. Harry just giggles because he knows that Louis isn’t really mad at him.  
“What are you doing up so early?” the other boy asks conversationally. Louis just shrugs as he finds a muffin in the fridge and takes a large bite.  
“Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbles around his mouthful. He plops down on the couch next to his best friend. Harry scoots over and offers him some of the blanket. Louis gladly takes it, because the bus is absolutely freezing.  
“You excited for Wales?” Harry asks as they both stare out the window. Louis nods absentmindedly as he stares at his best friend.  
“Hey, you seem stressed,” Harry points out as he cuddles closer to Louis.  
“It’s El,” Louis finally confesses after a minute.  
“What about her?” Harry asks, and Louis can detect a very clear hostility in Harry’s tone.  
“Don’t be like that,” Louis pleads. “I know you don’t approve. But I don’t have any other choice.”  
“Sure you do,” Harry retorts. “You could break up with her and be honest with yourself for once in your life.” Louis recoils from that.  
“Hey! I am being honest with myself. Besides, El knows the scope of things. We’re just friends. I’m lucky she’s willing to do this for me at all. It means she can’t date as well,” Louis bites out. Harry falls silent and seems to be contemplating his choices.  
“What about you, Louis?” he finally asks softly. Louis is confused for a second.  
“What about me?” he asks as he turns to face Harry. The younger boy fiddles for a second before meeting Louis’ confused blue gaze with a determined green one.  
“What about you getting to date who you want?” Harry asks pointedly. Louis just flips his hair and shrugs.  
“That’s not relevant.”  
“And why’s that?”  
“Because I don’t have anybody else in mind.”  
“Really, Lou?”  
“Harry, please stop,” Louis pleads. He knows that when he gets into arguments with people, it’s like his filter just completely shuts off. He says what he feels, not what he knows would be best. So, Harry is coming dangerously close to finding out a truth that Louis has done his best to hide since the X factor.  
“No, Louis. I’m your best friend. I know everything about you. But it all seems to be surface level. When are you finally going to talk about anything of substance?” Harry stubbornly pursues. Louis almost hisses in frustration.  
“That’s why it’s called a private life, Harry,” he responds.  
“And that’s why I’m called your best friend,” Harry argues back. Louis is left without a comeback and he just falls silent.  
“Come on, Louis. Why won’t you talk to me?” Harry asks, with green eyes rounded and puppy-like.  
“I can’t talk to you, Harry,” Louis finally manages to choke out as he fights back against the crack in his voice.  
“Why not?” Harry asks. He’s not backing down like he usually does. So, Louis blurts out the answer without thinking about it. “Because I’d pick you over Eleanor any day,” he spits out as quickly as possible. Well… now that’s out in the air. Harry reels back for a moment and Louis knows that his meaning behind the words has obviously been understood by Harry. He’s unsure if he’s grateful for that or not.  
“Oh, Louis. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Harry finally asks. Louis whips around to stare at his best friend in utter surprise. He’d expected things like Lou, I like you as a friend or I’m your best mate, but I don’t like you like that. He’d been ready for those responses.  
“Because I had a girlfriend,” Louis defends. Harry scoffs but his eyes are gentler than Louis has ever seen.  
“And because I was well aware of the consequences, Harry. I mean, first of all you’re my best mate. It would be awkward as all hell. And second, management would kill me ten times over,” Louis says with resignation.  
“Did you really think it would destroy our friendship?” Harry asks. Louis just shrugs.  
“How was I supposed to know? It’s not like you ever told me you liked me. I just sort of assumed- mmph,” Louis is cut off in the best way possible as Harry pushes him further back and lays his lips on Louis’. For a moment, Louis’ brain decides to shut off. But then he’s back and fighting for dominance in the kiss. Harry gives it gladly. Louis tangles his fingers into Harry’s curls and pulls the boy impossibly closer.

2020

The drive back to his house on Tuesday is a rather uneventful one. He’d crashed with a friend the previous night and had headed back to his own house Tuesday morning. Louis keeps playing back the first kiss in his head, and it’s on repeat until he pulls into his driveway. Until his little escape to fantasy has to come to an end and Louis has to actively work to push Harry away yet again.  
He unlocks his front door and enters the large living room. He flings his keys and wallet down onto the wooden table sat next to his front door and kicks his shoes off. He tosses his sunglasses on a chair and flops down on his sofa. The car trip did help to get the wanderlust out of his system, but it didn’t solve his problems. He pulls his phone out and sees that he has a message from Liam.  
Hey Lou, harry and niall wanted to put loved you first and strong on the album. You cool with that??  
Louis curses out loud at the song choices, but messages back saying that it’s fine with him. He then pulls out the list they’d been compiling of the songs they were choosing to put on the album. He adds Loved You First and Strong, before folding it and laying it on his counter. He really should get some lunch. Maybe. Probably. He makes himself a sandwich with a sliced up apple and heads to the other room to eat and watch a movie.  
A cheerful ping from his phone alerts Louis to another message from Liam.  
What are your ideas for the album?  
Not sure yet. I’ll message you when ive thought of some songs, Louis quickly texts back before he turns his phone off and focuses on picking a movie. He eventually settles for Titanic, because that’s just the kind of mood Louis is in. So take him to court, he can be sad and depressed for a day can’t he?  
After his little depression party, Louis decides to be productive. He works on the lyrics that Niall had sent him for one of the new songs and also works with Julian on one of their unreleased songs. Louis is honestly enjoying the challenge. It feels a bit like a competition, if they can get this thing done in time or not. And Louis is absolutely determined to win.  
“Right, Louis. I was thinking that you lead the melody for Nobody Else. And, um you have verse four I think,” Julian says as he stares at his computer screen. Louis nods along as he looks at the lyrics before him.  
“I think that sounds good,” Louis replies. They end up making plans to record Nobody Else for the last week in June, and well, it’s not like Louis has anything else to do.  
“Alright, I guess I’ll talk to you later,” Julian eventually says. Louis nods and they say quick goodbyes before Louis hands up, leaving him in an empty house. His evening is fairly boring, just a takeout dinner and playing computer games. When it’s a decent hour, Louis heads upstairs to his bedroom. He strips out of his clothing and changes into boxer shorts before he hops into bed. Despite his relative lack of activity, Louis is asleep within minutes of crawling into his bed.

Louis wakes on Wednesday morning feeling a little less anxious about this meeting than Saturday’s. Maybe it’s because they’re all meeting at Niall’s house this time. Regardless, Louis gets up and changes into black jeans and a black t-shirt. When he looks down at himself, he realizes he looks like a crew member at a concert. But he shrugs and moves onto the bathroom. He takes time to style his hair and washes his face before he heads downstairs to his kitchen for breakfast.  
After much debating, he has leftovers for breakfast, having decided that cooking just really isn’t worth the effort. It’s not like anyone is going to squeal on him for his bad eating habits, right? Louis lives alone, no one will ever know.  
Before he even knows it, the time is 11:30 and he needs to head over to Niall’s, the Irish boy having insisted that they all have lunch together. Louis thinks it’s just an excuse to order way too much pizza.  
He gets out of his house ten minutes later and hops into his car. He turns the radio on and is surprised when he hears Live While We’re Young playing. Jesus, it’s been months since he’d heard that song. But he lets it play and finds himself softly humming along with the chorus as he drives through the streets of LA. He finds Niall’s house easily enough and walks up the long pathway to get to the front door. He knocks lightly and waits for a few moments. The door is soon thrown open by an enthusiastic Niall already holding bowls of crisps and dip in his hands.  
“Hey, mate. What’s up?” Niall asks as he steps back and allows Louis into the house. The older boy just shrugs and closes the door behind him.  
“How much food have you ordered?” he asks.  
“Four pizzas, chinese food, oh and I picked up some apples last time I was at the store,” Niall states, like apples would somehow cancel out all of the other stuff he’d gotten.  
“Four pizzas?” Louis asks.  
“Yeah, two for you and Harry and Liam and then of course, two for me,” Niall happily responds. Louis just shakes his head at his friend and follows him into the kitchen.  
“You want something to drink?” he asks.  
“Yeah, vodka. Lots and lots of vodka,” Louis snips as he sees Harry’s car pull up into the driveway. Niall glances up to see what’s made Louis so unhappy and he sees Harry’s car too. He flashes Louis a warning glance and hands him a beer.  
“Thanks,” Louis says as he also grabs a handful of crisps. Niall goes and answers the door for Harry, leaving Louis alone in the kitchen. He sees that Niall has all of the bowls labeled, one for each person, and Louis just has to smile at that. He takes his own bowl of crisps and eats a few more. Niall and Harry eventually both appear in the kitchen where Louis is drinking his beer.  
“Where’s Liam?” Harry asks.  
“Oh, he said he was gonna be a few minutes late. I guess his video call with Bear went overtime,” Niall explains as he takes his own bowl of chips and leads the other two out to his backyard.  
“Mi casa es su casa,” Niall announces as he gestures for them to sit down. Louis sees Harry take a bag of apple slices and suddenly feels guilty for his own choice of crisps. But he pushes the thought away, fairly rapidly.  
“Have you guys been talking with Julian?” Niall asks. Both Harry and Louis nod.  
“He told me that we could maybe manage five songs. If we started recording right away.”  
“Yeah, he told me the same thing,” Harry confirms. “Why don’t we start recording Early in the Morning next week?” he suggests. Louis’ head spins as he realizes just how soon everything is going to be happening.  
“Sounds good,” he responds.  
“Yeah, and we’ll talk to Liam when he gets here,” Niall responds.  
“I am here,” a voice behind them says. Louis spins around and sees Liam approaching the four of them in the yard, carrying four pizzas.  
“Niall, what exactly did you order? These cost almost eighty dollars,” Liam complains as he sets them down.  
“Extra cheese, Liam. It’s essential,” Niall explains as he lifts the lid open and inhales the scent.  
“Right, everybody grab a slice. Just don’t touch any other piece,” Niall instructs as he grabs plates from the patio. Louis takes a couple of slices of pepperoni and digs into the greasy food.  
“Liam, we were thinking of recording Early in the Morning next week,” Harry tells the newcomer. Liam thinks for a moment before nodding along.  
“Oh, and I managed a phone call with Zayn. He said he’d be down for recording the unreleased tracks and the new songs. But he doesn’t want to do any sort of reunion performance. And he wants to make it clear that he’s not rejoining One Direction,” Liam announces. Louis figures that’s about as much as he’d hoped for with Zayn. Fine, fine, he’s being mean. But unless Liam has somehow found a way to read his mind, no one will ever know.  
“Great! I guess that’s better than nothing,” Harry remarks. Liam just grunts and falls into a chair. Louis flashes him a sympathetic glance. He knows just how much Liam had been missing his connection with Zayn.  
“Right, so we’re all in agreement for the track list for the first four tracks,” Liam says, officially starting the meeting. Niall has a whiteboard set up on the lawn and Liam goes over and quickly scribbles something down.

Tracklist:

1\. Follow You  
2\. Loved You First  
3\. No Control  
4\. Early in the Morning

He continues scribbling down song titles and begins planning the order they’ll be played in. Louis, at this moment, really couldn’t care less. He’s too busy trying to study Harry. There’s something different about the singer today. He seems… out of focus, sadder even.  
The meeting is over before Louis knows it and all too soon they’re saying their goodbyes until Saturday. Louis lingers for a few moments while Liam and Niall say goodbye. He’s tempted to go and talk to Harry. To somehow start closing this yawning gap between them. Because well, Louis doesn’t only miss his boyfriend, he misses his best friend.  
Louis makes a decision quickly, and doesn’t allow his mind to linger on the potential consequences. He’s always been good at shutting off his rational brain, and just acting on instinct. It is his speciality after all. Louis walks over to where Harry is standing, intent on making things right between them somehow. But he stops when he realizes that Harry is on the phone.  
“What? No, no it’s okay. I know it’s hard not seeing each other. Trust me, we’ll do something as soon as we’re allowed to. Huh? Well I wouldn’t be a very good boyfriend if I didn’t. Yeah, alright look I gotta head home. Yeah, yeah I love you too,” Harry says, grinning cheekily even though the other person obviously cannot see him.  
For Louis, that conversation acted as a body blow. He’s frozen where he stands, with one foot extended slightly as he’d been preparing to make a step. His mind races to process the information. At least some instinct tells him to turn around and head for the house. So he does.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
In the horrible days after that Wednesday meeting, Louis does his absolute best to erase Harry’s conversation that he’d overheard from his mind. But of course, that just means he thinks about it more.  
He thinks about it when he’s in the shower, when he’s watching tv, when he’s writing songs. It’s like it’s always there, lodged somewhere in the back of Louis’ mind. It drives him absolutely insane.  
“Why are you so grumpy?” Niall finally asks, while they’re facetiming on Friday.  
“I’m not,” Louis instantly defends. “Just tired, that’s all.” Niall raises an eyebrow, completely unimpressed with Louis’ poor acting.  
“Whatever you say. Oh, I got the lyrics you texted me. Really good. I especially love the third verse. Um, I was thinking…” Niall trails off as he leans out of the camera’s view to find a piece of paper. Louis takes that time to take a sip of tea and pulls out his own handwritten lyrics. He’s pretty proud of them, not to brag or anything. He’d sent the song to Niall after he’d written a rough first draft and asked for feedback.  
“Right, so on the second verse, I think that using ‘Tryna get you out of my head’ is better than using ‘mind.’ I think it fits better with the fourth line,” Niall says as he scribbles down some more notes. Louis glances at the mentioned line and nods in agreement.  
“Yeah, sounds good. I’ll change it.”  
“Gosh, it’s insane, isn’t it?” Niall asks. “I mean, we start recording next week. One Direction is being revived next week.”  
“I didn’t know we had died,” Louis quips. “Man, can't believe I missed my own funeral.”  
“Yeah, it was a blast. All that food and partying. Sad that you were already dead,” Niall jokes.  
“Alright, well I should probably get going. You know, I’ve got lots of important stuff to do. I’ll see ya at Harry’s tomorrow. Kay?” Louis asks. Niall nods and waves goodbye as he ends the call. Louis picks up the lyrics and makes the changes Niall had suggested. He is then left with another twenty four hours before he has to leave his house again.  
Louis wastes what’s left of Friday playing computer games and picking up a little around the house. He gets yet another restless night of sleep before waking up on Saturday.  
He picks out outfit after outfit, stressing once again about how to present himself. He eventually chooses a whitish-cream rough shirt and blue shorts. He runs downstairs to grab a bit of breakfast and then proceeds to watch Friends for the next three hours. Before he knows it, it’s once again time to leave for Harry’s. This is getting old, he thinks as he goes out to his car. Then he has to remind himself that he’s only been doing this for a few weeks and to stop being a big baby. That’s easier said than done, though.  
Still, Louis makes it over to Harry’s with no problems and even manages to muster up the courage to knock on the door. He’s greeted by a smiling Harry, and God does his heart die a little bit.  
“Hey, Harry,” he tentatively greets. Harry’s smile remains, but his eyes show that he’s uncomfortable.  
“Hey, Louis. Come on in,” Harry greets and steps back from the door. Somehow, without Louis realizing it, they’ve started calling each other by their actual names. He doesn’t remember that last time he called Harry “Haz.” And, it’s been a while since Lou has been a thing between them.  
“So, how’s your week been?” Harry asks as he heads them to the large patio.  
“Eh, not bad. I still can’t believe that we will start recording next Wednesday.”  
“Yeah, me neither,” Harry responds, shaking his head as he hands Louis a water bottle.  
“So…” Louis starts, but then trails off as an awkward silence stretches over the two of them.  
“Yeah,” Harry responds, looking down at the grass. “You’re early,” he finally notes. Louis laughs slightly. He’s not about to admit that he was so nervous about this meeting that getting ready was the only thing that calmed him. So, instead he says, “Well, I’ve been picking up good habits, mate. I’m no longer a slouchy teenager.”  
“No, no you’re not,” Harry responds with genuine laughter in his green eyes. Louis grins, and cracks open his bottle. He takes a refreshing sip while Harry offers him a chair. Louis sits down gratefully and watches as Harry bustles around, making sure all the snacks are in place.  
“So, uh, how has life been for you?” Louis finally asks.  
“Pretty good. Yeah, I think that having all this time has been good for me. I’ve been able to really reflect on what I want,” Harry responds.  
“Oh?” Louis asks, trying and failing to not sound desperate for information.  
“Yeah, I’ve been talking with Kendall some. She, uh, she…” Harry trails off awkwardly as he seems to realize who he’s talking to. And even though the thought of Harry and Kendall breaks Louis’ very soul, he still wants to hear the confirmation for himself.  
“You and Kendall, eh?” he asks. Harry looks flustered for a few moments and glances down at his knees.  
“She told me she liked me. And, I was willing to give it a go,” Harry explains. Louis nods in understanding even though he wants to vomit. He’d never really known if there was any truth to the Harry and Kendall rumors. He knew that Harry had never identified as strictly being gay, and even when they’d been together, Harry had always adamantly said that he didn’t think that gender was a huge factor for him. Louis had respected it.  
“Wow… I’m…” Louis was going for “Wow, I’m really happy for you,” but the words seemed to catch in his throat. He’s left floundering around for something appropriate to say.  
“Are you okay, Louis?” Harry asks. Louis gives him a cheerful nod and easily slips into his fun loving persona.  
“Yeah, sorry Harry. I just phased out there for a moment. I’m really happy for you. Kendall seems like a lovely person,” Louis manages to say. Harry nods and bites his lip. The doorbell rings a few moments later, and Harry leaves to answer it. It gives Louis a few precious moments to process. So, Harry is dating again. Although, it didn’t sound like he was completely ecstatic about it. Louis scolds himself then. Why should he care if Harry is excited or not? He’s your ex, a little voice reminds him. If Louis could kill that voice he certainly would. But no. No, instead he keeps on his familiar persona throughout the entire meeting. After all, he’s had years of practice hasn’t he?  
*****  
Louis finds himself growing more and more excited as Wednesday approaches. He does vocal exercises every morning, knowing that he’s gonna have to go low in this first song. So he works with his vocal coach on training his voice some for his solo.  
The days still seem overly long, though. Louis makes it through Monday before he nearly explodes from all of his pent up energy. He manages this by talking with Freddie and organizing his garage.  
Finally, finally, finally, Wednesday comes. Louis wakes up bright and early, okay 8:30 but you know what? Shut up! He finds that he has a new energy in his step as he saunters down to his kitchen for breakfast. He makes sure it’s a simple meal that won’t hurt his voice later in the day.  
After he’s done with the dishes, it’s finally time to record with Julian. Louis facetimes the man on his laptop while he sets up his studio in his recording room in his house. Louis puts the headphones on and adjusts the microphone so that it suits him. The room is cozy, as small as possible to still get a good sound. He’d had it built when he’d bought the house.  
“Okay, Louis. Let’s start with the bridge for Nobody Else,” Julian instructs. Louis is so grateful that they’d bumped up recording this one. He absolutely loves the chorus, and it reminds him a lot of Over Again.  
“Right, gotcha,” he responds as he looks at the lyrics in front of him.  
“Okay, and a one two three four,” Julian counts off. Louis takes a breath as he prepares to sing the first words for One Direction in five years.  
“Baby I promise you, that in the darkest of nights  
You’re the one that I call  
Cause you give me all, that I need  
Oh!”

Louis and Julian end up working with those four lines for the next twenty minutes.  
“I want you to go lower on ‘call.’ It’ll work really well with the guitar harmony,” Julian states. Louis nods and tries again, this time, nailing the second line.  
“Perfect,” Julian happily says as he begins fiddling with the recording on his own laptop.  
They record for the next hour or so, until they have most of Louis’ parts for Nobody Else.  
“Great job today, Lou,” Julian compliments as he receives the audio files. “Tomorrow, same time?”  
“Yup, sounds good,” Louis responds before ending the call. He steps out of his little studio and takes his laptop to the kitchen. His throat is strained slightly, from having not actually recorded for a few months. But he figures a nice cup of tea will help get him back on track.  
As his water is boiling, a notification pings on his phone. He leaves the tea bags and checks what it is. Turns out, it’s a new google news result from One Direction. Louis may or may not have followed that particular search term last week. So what? He finds it’s an article by the Daily Mail, about Harry. Louis almost doesn’t read the headline, but his eyes are already scanning the words.  
HARRY STYLES AND KENDALL QUARANTINING TOGETHER?!?  
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Louis curses as he clicks on the link. He’s not even sure if it’s true or not. He knows that last time he was at Harry’s, there was no sign of the model. But maybe God just spectacularly hates him or something, and something has changed in the last couple of days. Maybe that was what Harry was talking about during the phone conversation.  
Louis scrolls through the article, as he searches for any grain of truth. And he’s extremely grateful when he finds none. The article is clickbait, pure and simple. And Louis has never loved clickbait more. Because, well… he’d be lying if he said he’d be okay with it all. Louis knows he’s a possessive person. Rumors of Harry and other women used to drive him crazy. And even though Louis remains a listener of Taylor Swift, and even though he knows that there was nothing between her and Harry, he still hates her just a little bit.  
Louis exits from the article, suddenly wishing there was a dislike button for it. He puts a hand over his eyes as he tries to regain some semblance of control over his mind. In a way, it’s worse with Kendall because he knows it’s real. Harry himself confirmed it. And Louis just doesn’t know what to do with that.  
*****  
Louis mostly focuses on recording and writing for the next several days. He goes to the Saturday meeting and they discuss more about the songs and what sound they’d like to present on the album. He works with Liam on Sunday on refining the lyrics for Our Little Secret, as even though he’d started the song with Harry, Louis would actually rather eat twenty pounds of avocados than work with Harry on that song.  
Still, they continue to make great progress on the album and Louis begins to actually think they can pull this off by the anniversary.  
“Has Zayn started recording anything?” Niall asks in a group facetime. Liam nods quickly.  
“Yeah, I chatted with him yesterday. He said that his parts are coming along well.”  
“Wow, looks like this is actually gonna happen,” Harry responds. Niall makes a noise of agreement.  
“Right, well I should probably take off. I want to get in a run this evening,” Liam says before he signs off. Louis looks at the other two boys occupying his screen and starts to say that he’s leaving too, but Niall beats him to it.  
“Right, I gotta go too. My food's here,” Niall says as he gives them a salute and disappears. It leaves just Harry and Louis.  
“I saw that you and Liam were working on Our Little Secret,” Harry notes. Louis freezes for a moment. He’d forgotten that he would have to deal with this eventually. It’s not like he could just exclude Harry completely from the song.  
“Yeah, I showed him the lyrics and he really liked it,” Louis responds. “Is… is that a problem?”  
“Oh, no. No problem,” Harry says a little too brightly.  
“Right, well I just thought it might be a bit awkward and all,” Louis says awkwardly.  
“Yeah… no it’s all good with me. And it’s a good song. It, uh, it’s a nice reminder,” Harry eventually says. Louis nods along.  
“So, when do you think all of this will be over?” Harry asks. “Covid, I mean.”  
“Oh, not sure, mate. I mean, maybe by September? I hope so, getting a little sick of just being alone in my house,” Louis remarks. “And hopefully we can do a bit of performing once it’s all over.”  
“Yeah, that’d be good,” Harry replies. “I’ve missed performing with One Direction.”  
“What? Water fights and the bondage bear?” Louis jokes. Harry smiles softly and Louis knows that they’re both now swimming in old memories.  
“Maybe we should revive the bondage bear,” Harry suggests cheekily. Louis just flashes him a smile and replies, “I don’t think so. Don’t want the world thinking we’re a couple again.”  
“Course,” Harry replies, with a bright and fake laughter. “Oh, Louis I have another call from my mum. I gotta go,” Harry suddenly announces. Louis nods and waves goodbye while Harry suddenly disappears from his screen.  
Louis sighs as he slips his phone back into his pocket. He puts the news on the tv and begins preparing a sandwich for dinner. While he’s mindlessly slicing cheese, Louis’ mind goes back to his conversation with Harry. It had been awhile since Louis had been reminded of the older days of One Direction. He’d been forcing those memories away for so long that it had become second nature to him. He’d told himself that it was better that way.  
But is something different now? Why is Louis allowing himself to go down that road again? The time for Louis and Harry was done. They’d had their run, and now it was finished. Louis takes the plate and sits down on the sofa while his mind churns with these thoughts. Louis knows that Harry could’ve been his endgame. He’s all too aware that Harry could’ve been his one and only. Everybody else always thought so. Niall and Liam thought of them as the dream team. Even Zayn had faith in their relationship. So did the fans. And so did Louis. Up until the very end, Louis had been confident that Harry would be by his side until the day he died.  
But things changed. Louis has accepted that. He mourned for their future, and then he moved on. Had it been hard? Hell yes. But, it had been necessary and Louis is proud that he’d gotten through it. Now he’s back though, and he’s dangerously close to tipping down into the abyss. But he’s not exactly sure if he has the strength to get out again. He knows that it would mean the definite end for any kind of platonic relationship with Harry. It would probably mean the end of One Direction as well. Somehow, Louis just doesn’t see One Direction as a trio of him, Niall and Liam ever actually succeeding.   
A teeny tiny part of his mind reminds him that Harry is technically with Kendall, but he brushes that thought off fairly quickly. No, no Louis can’t be having these thoughts. Their breakup nearly tore the band apart last time. And it had torn both Louis and Harry apart for months after. Louis has to accept Harry has a time period in his life, sure, but as a period in the past. Not sometime in the future. Harry can be Louis’ one that got away. Louis nods as he makes that resolution. But, of course, his stupid conscience is already telling him that sooner or later, that resolve will break. And when it does, Louis will be in for a world of trouble.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
It has been a long while since Louis has thought of Harry in a romantic perspective. And yet, ever since he’d figured out about Harry and Kendall, it seems to be all Louis can think about. While doing mindless chores, his mind flashes back to different memories of their relationship. While making tea, he thinks of the quiet evenings at home when they got a rare night off from touring and he and Harry would cuddle on the couch while watching a movie. While he vacuums around the house, he’s reminded of the times when they were younger and shared a flat and made it fun by dancing around while cleaning.  
He’s really become quite pathetic, hasn’t he? Actually, don’t answer that.   
Louis wakes up on the first day of July already done with the month. They’ve been doing well with recording, and everyone's a little more optimistic about actually getting this album out in time. They have less than a month to go, and it’s like this entire thing has been a race to the finish line. It’s been decided that the announcement will come out on the tenth, and the tracklist on the fifteenth.  
“Louis? Louis?”  
Louis’s thoughts wander back to the very first days of meeting Harry. Ever since they’d begun recording Our Little Secret, Louis has been subjected to constant thoughts of Harry. The song had been written about their relationship after all. He still remembers the first time he and Harry had sat down together to work out the melody for that one. One line in particular, “they’ll never know the secret glances we share” has thrown Louis back to every concert where he and Harry had been communicating in their own secret language to express their love to each other.  
“Louis?!”  
And Louis does try, he really really does. But the memories are like a dam in his mind, and unfortunately it’s been broken. Completely destroyed, with no hope of salvaging any of his work. He’d built that dam brick by brick, forcing every happy memory of Harry to sit there in the back of his mind. And now he has to do that work all over again.  
“LOUIS!” Liam shouts. Louis blinks a couple times and finally tunes back into their conversation. What were they talking about again?  
“I swear to God, Louis. Have you been listening to any of this?” Liam asks in annoyance. Louis glances sheepishly at his bandmates who are all sat in Niall’s yard.  
“I guess I was tuning out,” Louis apologizes. “What were we talking about?”  
“The tour,” Liam informs him, although not without a sarcastic eye roll.  
“Oh… right the tour,” Louis states, trying to cover the fact that he really hasn’t been listening for the entire meeting.  
“Niall was just talking about a small arena tour?” Liam prompts. Louis thinks he might remember something about that.  
“Right yeah, I think that’s probably a good idea. Maybe fifty shows?” It’s nowhere near the kind of tours they had once done, but Louis thinks it’s probably a good thing. They all have their own tours anyways.  
“Yeah, I was thinking probably mostly in Europe and then a few shows in the US. Maybe going down to Mexico and then to Japan for a show or two. And Australia,” Niall pipes in.  
“Sounds good,” Liam agrees. “And we’ll announce the tour sometime after the album is out.” Louis nods along again. His eyes subconsciously flick to Harry sitting on his right. The younger boy has begun to have just the slightest hint of stubble on his face, which makes him look about ten times more mature than he used to. Louis finds his gaze shifting down to Harry’s lips multiple times before he mentally scolds himself. He may not be the brightest person on this planet, but he’s pretty damn sure that these thoughts about Harry are not a smart thing to be having. But Louis’ mind has a funny way of ignoring logic. Sometimes it’s good, this time it’s bad. So, while Liam continues to drone on and on about tour dates, Louis’ thoughts shift to the horrible day when he and Harry had broken up.

2016

The world was happy with Made in the A.M. And the entire band is relieved about that. Louis in particular. Zayn’s departure hadn’t just shook them as a band, it had forced them to re-examine their sound as a whole. Louis hadn’t been sure that they could pull it off.  
Still, it seemed like One Direction could indeed be successful with this new look. Louis, at first, had been ecstatic. He was happy with the music they’d been making, and he and Niall were finally beginning to contribute an equal part to the band’s music. When Harry had suggested a hiatus, Louis had been crushed at first. But now, in 2016 he’s beginning to see Harry’s point of view.  
“Hey,” Harry’s quiet voice greets him as Louis steps into their kitchen. Louis nods at his boyfriend as he pushes his hair out of his eyes.  
“What’s the plan for today?” Harry asks as he snakes his arm around Louis’ waist. Louis smiles and leans back into Harry’s softness. There’s no feeling in the world quite like being surrounded by Harry. It’s a peace that he’d only ever found in his mother’s army before.  
“I have to go see El,” he finally admits. He feels Harry stiffen, and his arms draw away from Louis’ body. And suddenly Louis wishes that he’d lied about what he had to do.  
“See El? As in break up with her?” Harry asks, and oh God it breaks Louis’ heart to hear the hopelessness in Harry’s voice.  
“No,” he quietly says, confirming Harry’s fears. Harry just sighs, and his green eyes show his clear frustration. “You tried this before,” Harry argues.  
“And you saw what happened in March,” Louis shoots back. “Our breakup just added more fuel to the whole Larry thing.”  
“You think I don’t know that?” Harry asks incredulously. Louis just bites his lip as he contemplates what to say next.  
“Look, El and I aren’t confirming anything right now. Okay? I’m just meeting with her to discuss a possible relationship in the future.” Louis had finally decided last March that he and El should probably go their separate ways, and she’d been all for it. He’d managed to convince management that their efforts to bury Larry Stylinson had worked, and nobody really believed they were really together. It had been difficult, and Louis may or may not have done the breakup even without a solid green light? Oops. Still, it had meant for several glorious months, he and Harry hadn’t had to live with the constant shadow of Louis’ girlfriend.  
But when Made in the A.M. had been in production, management had become paranoid again. So, that’s why Louis had agreed to this meeting with Eleanor. But, as was becoming clear now in this moment, Harry didn’t approve.  
“So that’s it then? What, we’re back to 2012 now?” Harry asks. Louis takes a deep breath as he feels his own frustration rising. He knows Harry is upset about this. He doesn’t need a reminder of their constant need to hide in secret.  
“Will you let it go?” Louis snaps. “I know that it’s hard, okay?” And, okay maybe that wasn’t fair. But Louis feels as though Harry is being unfair to him. He’s trying to make things better for them.  
“I’m sorry, you’re right. Maybe I should let it go. Maybe I should just accept living the next fifty years in the closet while my boyfriend goes off with some girl,” Harry slowly retorts. Louis can hear the anger in his voice.  
“Well considering that I’m the one who actually has to have a girlfriend…” Louis sarcastically replies.  
“Oh really? You’re going there? I’m the womanizer, Louis. I’m the one who had to fucking date more than one girl on the bloody X-Factor. I’m the one who had to do the PR with Taylor Swift.” Harry’s got tears sparkling in his eyes, and can everything just slow down for two seconds? Everything is escalating so quickly for Louis, and he’s far too close to just losing it.  
“I’m not saying you didn’t make sacrifices,” Louis argues. “But El is our only chance to maybe live a life where we don’t have to constantly look over our shoulders. Don’t you want that?” he pleads. He desperately wants Harry to just agree with him right then and there. But Harry just swallows hard and looks down at his feet.  
“Louis, I can’t do that,” Harry finally says after several moments. “I can’t do this whole thing again. And if you think that’s what you have to do… then I don’t know what to do.” Louis feels his heart cracking in two as Harry speaks.  
“What to do about us?” he asks, his voice rough from emotion. Harry nods slowly. And this feels far too much like a breakup for Louis’ comfort.  
“Maybe if our careers were different, maybe if we’d never made it past the X-Factor. Maybe we’d have a shot at forever,” Harry admits. Louis’ head shoots up at that. Because Harry’s saying that in this reality, they don’t have a chance.  
“What are you saying?” he questions. Harry takes a deep breath as he steels himself for the words he’s about to say, “I think that we maybe shouldn’t continue with this.” Well, and if that isn’t the body blow of a lifetime. Louis feels tears finally escape from their blue prisons and wet his face.  
“Well it sounds as though your mind is already made up,” he manages to choke out. Harry looks away as his own eyes shimmer with unshed tears.  
“I guess so.”

2020

Louis takes a deep breath, as the emotions from that day all flood back to him. He glances up to the other boys and sees that Harry is staring at him. When Louis’ eyes flick towards the other boy, Harry quickly looks away.  
“Right, so I guess there’s nothing else to really talk about right now. Halfway to go. And a race to the finish line right now,” Liam sums up the meeting. The other three boys nod in agreement.  
“I can’t believe we actually are managing to pull this off,” Niall admits, and the other three all make sounds of agreement.  
“And to think everyone’s saying we’ll never get back together,” Louis chips in. “Guess we’ll show them.”  
“Right, well I gotta go. I have to do some grocery shopping,” Liam announces as he gets up from his chair. Niall nods and gets up as well to lead him back into the house.  
“Were you okay? Back there, you seemed a little off,” Harry asks once the other two have disappeared into the house.  
“What? Oh, yeah I was fine,” Louis answers absentmindedly. “Just thinking about some stuff.”  
“Ah, yeah,” Harry replies softly. “Hey, Louis. I was… I was wondering if maybe you wanted-”  
“Hey you two, want some lunch?” Niall interrupts as he strolls back into the yard. Louis glances at his phone and decides that he literally has nothing better to do. So he agrees, Harry has something else he has to do though so he leaves soon after Niall asks.  
“So, how have you been?” Niall asks as he orders Chinese food. Louis shrugs and accepts the beer from his friend.  
“Are you gonna be okay for the tour?” he asks as he plops into the seat next to Louis. Louis gives the other singer a confused glance.  
“I mean you and Harry, mate,” Niall explains. Louis just looks away and takes a sip of his drink.  
“We’ll be fine. We’re professionals.”  
“Do you practice that response or something?” Niall asks. Louis just rolls his eyes at his friend.  
“What do you want me to say? Harry’s my ex. So it’s not like we’re gonna be bros or anything. But we can be civil. Just look at these meetings,” Louis says.  
“Sure, we spend hours together each week. And you and Harry have said maybe fifty words to each other, total,” Niall points out. Louis just scoffs before he realizes that Niall might be right.  
“Well… whatever. The fans were fine when Harry and I didn’t interact during concerts,” Louis bluffs. Niall just snorts and shakes his head.  
“Actually, they were more like vultures. Waiting for the slightest interaction to analyze on Tumblr,” Niall responds.  
“They did that for everyone. Remember Ziam? Or Zarry?”  
“Yeah, remember how pissed off Zayn used to get about Zarry? Oh man, he hated those rumors.”  
“Well, he had his reasons,” Louis points out. Niall’s expression turns sad as he nods.  
“Yeah he did. I still wish things went differently, but I guess it’s no one’s fault.”  
“Mm, and I know that Liam tried to be as understanding as possible. But you can’t change your sexuality.”  
“Hey, if they had gotten together I could’ve been like the fifth wheel,” Niall suddenly exclaims, reminding Louis of the eighteen year old with fluffy blonde hair once again.  
“When do you think we can resume our tours?” Niall asks as they both walk into the house to answer the door. Niall picks up the food and leaves a tip for the delivery girl before taking the cartons back into the house. He hands one to Louis with a pair of chopsticks. They sit down on Niall’s bar stools and dig into their food.  
“Dunno, mate. I hope soon. I was really looking forward to my tour,” Louis admits.  
“Yeah, me too,” Niall agrees as he turns the radio on. One of the songs from his new album comes on. After a few moments, Louis recognizes it as Nice To Meet Ya.  
“This whole Covid thing is making me lazier than I ever thought possible,” Louis notes as they polish off the food and throw the cartons in the trash. Niall nods in agreement.  
“I know, right? I’ve been watching so much t.v. lately it could practically be a full time job.”  
“Yeah, thank God for Netflix and Disney+ right now,” Louis jokes. Niall laughs and nods.  
“Yeah I’ve been watching old disney channel shows and stuff. It makes me feel so old,” Niall complains. “Like, I was watching the old Jonas Brothers stuff and then I heard their new album and it seems like fifty years have passed.”  
“Try going back to watch What Makes You Beautiful,” Louis suggests. And because they have nothing better to do, that’s exactly what they end up doing. Niall searches for it on his t.v. and finds the video on YouTube. He almost cringes as he hears the opening notes playing. Niall pretty much cackles through the entire thing as he sees Liam’s old hairstyle and Louis’ pants. Louis is tempted to smack him, but the whole ‘six feet apart’ thing might make that difficult.  
“We were such babies back then,” Niall notes as the video stops and You And I begins to autoplay.  
“Yeah,” Louis agrees as the new video loads.  
“Why do I look like such a stick?” Niall asks as he sees himself in the grey clothing.  
“Because you were a stick,” Louis helpfully supplies. Niall just sighs and tips his head as he continues to study his past self. Louis still finds the whole concept of them melting into each other a bit creepy, but he watches it anyways. Niall mocks Louis’ frozen position and Louis just throws a chopstick at him.

“I should probably go,” Louis says, after they’ve watched over a dozen One Direction videos. Niall is still laughing from Harry’s Marcel in the Best Song Ever video, but he manages to nod as a response.  
“Yeah, okay. See ya in a few days,” Niall says, waving goodbye as Louis heads out the door. Niall watches him go, seeing the heaviness in Louis’ shoulders that had become permanent ever since the breakup. He pauses the t.v. and watches his bandmate get into his car and drive off. Niall frowns in concentration as he tries to think of something to improve the relationship between Harry and Louis.  
He’s thinking so hard that he almost misses his phone ringing. He ends up just shutting off the t.v. and picks up his phone. It’s Liam calling.  
“Hey mate,” Niall greets. “Did you leave your wallet here again?” Liam quickly replies that he didn’t, and Niall can sense a seriousness in his friend’s voice.  
“Then, what’s up?” he questions. Liam sighs through the phone and Niall can picture the pensive worried look that Liam probably has on his face.  
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Liam finally admits.  
“Liam, what is it?” Niall asks. Liam doesn’t speak for a few moments, although Niall can hear him breathing.  
“It’s about Harry and Louis.”


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Niall is Bond, James Bond. At least that’s how he feels. His conversation with Liam a few days earlier had been the first stepping stone for, as Niall calls it, ‘The Great Larry Plan.’ He takes all the credit for the name, thank you very much. As it turns out, Liam had been as worried about Louis and Harry as Niall himself had been. These were some of their best mates they were talking about.  
“The band will never survive the way things are,” Liam had admitted during the call. And Niall had nodded in agreement even though the other man couldn’t see him.  
“I know. But Louis keeps insisting everything is fine,” Niall protested. “What can we possibly do?”  
“I’m glad you asked that, Niall,” Liam had said, and Niall could just picture the sparkling mischievousness in Liam’s eyes. Liam had detailed a plan about how to break the tension between Louis and Harry, and how to ultimately get them back together. And that's how they’d ended their conversation. And why Niall’s currently feeling like James Bond.  
See, the next band meeting on the 7th would be held at Liam’s place. And Niall and Liam had a plan. Niall had arrived a half hour earlier than the scheduled meeting time to talk with Liam about what was going to happen.  
“Right, so at exactly 1400 Harry will arrive. At something like 1420 Louis will arrive. At approximately 1445, we’ll start the meeting about the album. At approximately-”  
“Niall,” Liam cuts him off rather hurriedly, “we’re not spies you know?” Niall just frowns at his friend. He’d known that. Why does Liam have to ruin all of his fun?  
“Anyways,” Liam segues. “Remember, the songs we talk during this meeting are Strong and Our Little Secret. Mm, it’s too bad we don’t have 18 on this album too.”  
“Do you really think this’ll do anything?” Niall questions. Liam just shrugs and replies, “I’m really not sure. But they are both musicians. Songs have a power that conversation just doesn’t. And both of those songs were really important in their relationship.”  
“I don’t know,” Niall states. “It feels a little like manipulation.”  
“Look Niall, we both care about Louis and Harry. We want them to be happy. And they’re too stupid to see that they can be happy with each other. So, think of it like helping them see the light,” Liam suggests. Niall sighs and nods along in agreement.  
“Okay, we lay the groundwork today. Then, on Thursday I have a meeting with Louis for some lyric tweaks and changes. I’ll do my best to steer the conversation towards Harry.”  
“Got it,” Niall says, already slipping back into the James Bond mindset. The doorbell rings which sends Liam downstairs to let Harry in. Niall walks around the second floor, looking at the art that Liam has hung on the walls.  
“Hey Niall,” Harry greets cheerfully as he sees the brunette on the landing. Niall spins around like he’s just been caught with one hand in the cookie jar.  
“Hi Harry,” he says far too loudly to be appropriate. Harry knots together his eyebrows in confusion, but eventually seems to just assume that it’s Niall being Niall.  
“How you been?” Harry asks as he joins Niall on the landing. Niall shrugs and gives Harry a description of his recent recordings.  
“Hm, wonder when Louis will get here,” Niall says, glancing none too subtly at Harry. Luckily, the other man doesn’t notice his strange behavior.  
“I swear sometimes Louis tries to be late,” Harry remarks, but there’s a warmth in his voice that Niall never hears, unless he’s speaking about Louis. It’s comforting to know that Harry still holds fondness for his former boyfriend.  
“I’m pretty sure bats have an easier time being on time during the day than Louis,” Niall jokes as he leans on the railing.  
“Oiii! Are you insulting me without me even being there?” a loud voice demands. Niall grins as he sees Louis making his way up the stairs.  
“Now that’s just not fair, Niall. I need to be able to defend myself against your God awful insults,” Louis quips. Niall just rolls his eyes and waves at his friend.  
“Hey Louis. We weren’t insulting you. We were just momentarily reflecting on your incredible ability to be late,” Niall explains.  
“Is that you trying to sound smart?” Louis sarcastically retorts. “If so, I think I’ve heard more intelligent things come out of Trump’s ass.” Niall scrunches up his nose as rather unpleasant images suddenly come to mind.  
“You know, it’s getting harder and harder to keep these meetings a secret,” Louis remarks as they all head to Liam’s kitchen. “I’m glad it’ll all be over in three days.” Niall nods along as he heads straight for the fridge.  
“Freeze food-stealer,” Liam orders as Niall reaches out to open the fridge. “No touching. I don’t want Bear exposed to anything that we can avoid.” He opens the fridge himself and hands Niall a beer and leftover chicken. Niall takes the offered gifts gratefully, satisfied that he won’t starve now.  
“Now that Niall has been fed, we should probably start the meeting,” Liam says as they head over to his large living room. They each take a seat on a different piece of furniture, Niall still clutching the bucket of chicken.  
“Right, so the songs are coming along great. We’ve got over half of the original ones recorded, plus all of the songs we already had. I was talking to Julian though, and he was asking if there was anything different we wanted to do with Strong.” Niall exchanges a glance with Liam as they both give a tiny nod. Neither one of them would talk. It would force either Louis or Harry to acknowledge the question.  
“Um, I don’t think there’s anything I want to change about the song,” Louis finally mumbles.  
“Yeah, yeah me neither,” Harry says as he downcasts his eyes. Niall glances at Liam and sees him take the lead.  
“Right, yeah okay. If that’s what you two want,” he says. Harry and Louis both take small glances sideways to look at each other.  
“What about the other songs?” Louis asks in an obvious bid to change the subject. Niall can almost see Liam’s smirk as he says, “well we need to talk about Our Little Secret.” Louis sucks in a breath and straightens his posture on the couch. Harry just nods and runs a hand through his curls.  
“I was thinking we might change a few lines in the second verse. You know, to make it feel a little bit more romantic. So, I was thinking that maybe changing ‘It’s like our own secret language’ to ‘This is our own special love song’ and then we can change the last words of line three…” Liam continues on and Niall takes subtle peeks at Harry and Louis. The two of them are sitting, stone faced, and absolutely refusing to engage.  
But then Louis surprises them all by saying, “yeah Liam. I think it’s a great idea, make it a bit more of a love song. After all, nobody said anything about it having to be realistic.” Harry’s head shoots up and he fixes Louis with a hurt gaze.  
“Uh…” Liam trails off, unsure of how to react. But Louis seems to have chosen this path and he’s sticking to it, “matter of fact, why don’t we change the bridge too. To something a little more lovey. It feels too much like just a friendship between mates right now.” Niall feels himself shrinking into his chair as he waits for Harry to respond.  
“You know what? I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. Actually, I think that the relationship should be written more as a friendship. Put a kernel of truth into it, you know?”  
“Oh, so now you want to live in the real world?” Louis shoots back without missing a beat. Niall and Liam both exchange alarmed glances. But then Niall realizes that this might be just what Harry and Louis need. Other than their breakup fight, the two of them had resolutely never argued about their relationship. Instead, they’d dodged questions and each other for the better half of a year. Maybe they needed to yell and scream at each other. Niall just wished he didn’t have to be present for it.  
“I’ve always lived in the real world. I just happen to believe that there is some good in it. Not everyone is cynical and untrusting,” Harry says slowly. Louis bites his lip as he visibly controls his emotions.  
“Oh so now I’m cynical? I was the one being realistic. You were the one off living in some fantasy world that I knew could never exist,” Louis is practically shouting now, but Harry is right there with him. Liam and Niall both simultaneously lean away from the argument like that could somehow shield them from it.  
“You never even tried! You gave up! You went running. You always did. Even in the very beginning, you were so worried what everyone else thought, Louis,” Harry states.  
“Alright, that’s enough,” Liam suddenly cuts in. “Louis, come with me,” he orders in a tone that should not be argued with. “Harry, you stay with Niall.” Liam gets up off the couch and glares at Louis before he gives an over dramatic sigh and follows the brunette into the other room.  
“What the hell was that, mate?” Niall asks. Harry just mumbles something inaudible and turns away. Niall hears a door being slammed and muffled voices that he can’t quite make out.  
“Harry, come on,” Niall says, with an edge to his voice that is rarely present. Harry just sighs and runs a hand through his hair.  
“I’m sorry, Niall. Look, it was nothing. Okay?” Harry sighs. Niall groans and rubs at his temples.  
“Harry, this thing is never gonna work if you and Louis can’t be civil. Now if you two need to yell and scream at each other every week, then how do you expect us to ever function?” Niall asks. Harry blows out a breath as he thinks.  
“It’s hard, Niall,” he admits. “I mean, here I am with a girlfriend, and I still can’t seem to get over Louis,” he almost whispers. Niall forces his face into neutrality while a spark of hope soars in his chest.  
“Harry, I know that this stuff is hard. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t everyone have their soulmate by the time they were 18?”  
“I guess so,” Harry responds. “But it wasn’t supposed to be this hard. I mean…” he trails off as he looks down at the floor.  
“You mean what?” Niall gently prompts. Harry scratches his forehead as he debates whether or not he should continue speaking.  
“Falling in love,” he finally, finally says. “No, actually. Not falling in love, that’s the easy part. Being in love. Being in love isn’t supposed to be so hard. I mean, in all the movies the main struggle is in establishing a relationship. No one ever told me how painful it could be after that happens.”  
“Look, Harry…” Niall waits for the other singer to actually meet his gaze. “We saw almost every part of your relationship. Maybe you guys had your rough spots, but every couple does. But anyways, my point is that you and Louis were really good together. I mean, we all saw it. Even the fans saw it. So, would you ever consider giving it another go?” Niall tentatively asks. Harry just lets out a humorless laugh and replies, “every single day of my life.” Niall raises his eyebrows in surprise but then Harry barrels on, “but what does it matter? It takes two people to make a relationship work. And besides, I’m with Kendall.” Niall rolls his eyes at the mention of the model. It’s not that he has anything against her, in particular. But she’s getting in the way of Harry and Louis, and it’s so blatantly obvious that Harry is nowhere even close to love in that relationship.  
“Kendall is a big girl. And if she has half a brain cell, then she would see as clearly as I do that your heart isn’t with her.”  
“Maybe,” Harry finally admits after several moments of silence. Niall breathes a sigh of relief at hearing that word. It means that there is hope yet for this band.

*****

“Well, you got me in here. Now what do you want to do? Lecture me like I’m five?” Louis questions sarcastically as Liam slams the door behind them.  
“If you keep behaving like one then yeah,” Liam retorts. Louis just glares at his friend and pointedly turns his back.  
“You have the same coping tactics as Bear,” Liam points out, much to Louis’ annoyance.  
“If all you’re going to do is insult me then I might as well go back into the living room. Harry was doing a splendid job of that himself,” Louis bites out bitterly. Liam just sighs loudly and flops down on a sofa.  
“How about instead of being a drama queen, you sit down and explain what just happened?” Liam asks dryly. Louis narrows his eyes, but he realizes that he actually has no desire to go back into the living room. Harry’s probably ranting to Niall about him. So, he takes the less painful of the two options and sits down in a large chair.  
“What do you want to talk about?” he forces out, as he feels every instinct in his body telling him to get as far away from this conversation as possible.  
“All the different types of bread,” Liam sarcastically quips. “What do you think?”  
“Has anyone ever told you what a pain in the ass you are?” Louis questions. Liam just rolls his eyes.  
“Use all the sarcasm you want, Louis. You’re not weaseling your way out of this conversation.”  
“Well what do you want me to say? Harry and I had a fight. It’s hardly the first time that has happened,” Louis points out.  
“It’s the first time after the breakup,” Liam refutes. “Now, what were you trying to say when you were suggesting changes to Our Little Secret.”  
“Nothing,” Louis explodes. “I was just frustrated and I still am! Okay? This situation absolutely sucks and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Harry and I broke up. And I know that I have no right to feel so possessive and jealous but I do. And it’s the worst feeling in the whole world.”  
“You still have feelings for him,” Liam calmly states.  
“Wow, aren’t you smart. You’ve managed to decode the very hidden meaning of what I was just yelling about,” Louis quips. “You’re a regular Albert Einstein, Liam.”  
“Stop using sarcasm as a defense mechanism, Lou. It’s getting old,” Liam says. Louis opens his mouth to spit out a retort but Liam beats him to it.  
“No, look Louis. I agree that the situation could be better. And I know, I know that your relationship with Harry had a lot of unfairness because of management… and because of the world in general. But you need to take some responsibility onto yourself.” Louis, for once, seems to be genuinely shocked into silence.  
“The truth is if you keep blowing up at Harry it makes you the bad guy. You both decided that you didn’t want the relationship anymore. Or that it wasn’t worth it. It really doesn’t matter the reason. The point is, if you can never let the relationship go then that means One Direction is finished. And I mean forever, Lou,” Liam takes in a shaky breath as he finally confesses a truth he’s dreaded for years.  
“I know I have to get over him,” Louis whispers, with traces of tears in his clear blue eyes. “I try to every single day. Every morning when I wake up, I think maybe I have. And then I feel my heart cracking in two and I know that it will be another day of missing Harry.”  
“You admitted that you still have feelings for him. Does that mean you want to get back together?” Liam asks. Louis just shrugs sadly.  
“That’ll never happen, Liam. Even if Kendall isn’t a long term relationship, it does make one thing clear. Harry’s moved on. Maybe not all the way, but enough to stop pining after our relationship.”  
“You didn’t answer my question,” Liam gently points out. Louis sighs and runs a hand through his unstyled hair.  
“Of course I want to, Liam. Who wouldn’t? I mean… I mean it’s Harry Styles.”  
“You… you mentioned before, or rather you didn’t protest, when I said you still have feelings for him,” Liam starts. Louis just nods along miserably.  
“I do, Liam. I’m not enough of an idiot to actually believe I don’t. Even I can’t be that ignorant.”  
“Right, um… so you still have feelings for him. But, do you still love him?” Liam finally manages to ask. Louis’ shoulders sag the moment the word ‘love’ is spoken. He doesn’t answer. Liam starts to think that he never will.  
But then, in a quiet voice, Louis responds, “yes.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

To say that the fans were eager about the album announcement would be a gross understatement. When the One Direction Instagram changed its profile picture to that of the new album cover art, it was like Jesus had made his second return. They’d also made a post, just a picture of the album art, and a message saying, “Coming on the anniversary. Are you ready?” The fans had flipped out. Louis is quite amused by it all. They’d managed to crash twitter for an hour as everyone started tweeting their excitement about it.

Louis’ own social media has been a frenzy of wild joy and happiness. And, since the new cover had Zayn on it, everybody and their friends have been speculating about Zayn’s involvement in the project. The album cover is nice, simpler than the previous ones. It was just each member in their own square, each wearing a piece of old 1D merch. Overall, the hype has been nice. It was never a guarantee that One Direction could make a comeback. And while Louis had been fairly confident that they could, the scale that it’s been on has been beyond anything he’d expected.

Today they’re dropping the first new song from the album. It’s a thirteen track edition, although three of the songs on it are readily available. Still, Louis is damn proud of the five tracks that are going to be new. In fact, he’s so happy that he’s able to put that fateful screaming match at Liam’s house completely out of his mind.

The guys gather together on a facetime call, one of the rare ones with Zayn, to see the song go up on the internet. Louis can hardly contain the goofy grin on his face as he sees the post on Spotify. He goes on his laptop and searches up One Direction, and can’t help the shoot of joy, as he sees the new single right there for the world to see.

“Looks great, guys,” Zayn says quietly. Louis glances over at the father-to-be. While he and Zayn have yet to have a conversation, just the two of them, Louis finds that he’s willing to let the past be the past. Truth is, he does miss some of the fun they had together when they were younger. They had been close. In fact, Zayn had been Louis’ second favorite person in the band until right before he left.

The thing is, he and Liam are great mates. Sure, that can’t be denied  _ but _ they have such different mindsets that it’s difficult to spend prolonged amounts of time with each other. And it’s not like Liam is the responsible control freak that he was portrayed as. But, especially when they were younger, he was so determined to make One Direction the biggest thing in the world. It clashed with Louis’ attitude of having fun and not taking life too seriously. Liam had been desperate to prove himself in the music industry. But time has mellowed him out some, and now they couldn’t be closer.

“The music video is also pretty great, what for being shot when we can’t even be in the same frame,” Niall concludes as he also taps away on his laptop. Their first single is one that Niall and Liam wrote called Flashbacks. There had been debate about whether or not to release an already released song, but ultimately they wanted to make as big of a splash as possible. And Louis thinks that Flashbacks is the perfect song to kick them off.

“Right, Our Little Secret goes out on the twentieth. Then the album and then another single later,” Liam rattles off as he looks at their schedule. “I can’t believe we actually managed to pull this off,” he adds.

“I’d say we beat Justin’s last album for hype,” Louis says happily. “I guess now we just wait for the general consensus.” That’s always the worst part. The couple of hours it takes for everyone to listen to a new song or album, and determine how they feel about it. It used to drive him mad whenever they’d release an album or single. So Harry had gotten very good at… distracting him so he didn’t have to think of the thousands of people currently judging him. Speaking of Harry, he hasn’t been. In fact, the younger singer has been pretty much silent for this entire call. And he and Louis haven’t spoken at all to each other since that last meeting. They have another one this coming Thursday though, so Louis supposes the silent treatment will have to stop eventually. The real question is whether he wants it to or not.

It had felt good to get some things off his chest with Harry. But the momentary relief had been nothing in comparison to the crushing blow of the actual fight they’d had. Liam had managed to calm him down, and Harry didn’t speak a word about it since. And maybe this is Louis’ growing maturity, but he feels as though he wants to. Sure, it’ll be painful. Eating his own guts would probably be more pleasant. But, he finds that he’d rather have pain than this tortuous hanging balance he has going on right now with Harry. Maybe he should extend an olive branch? Niall ends the call and leaves Louis with nothing but his own thoughts to occupy him. And that’s never a good thing.

He wanders into the kitchen, unsure of what to do with himself for the next two days. Until he has to see Harry again. He decides that a sandwich would be a good start. He grabs bread and cheese, not bothering with anything fancy and takes a hearty bite. Two days until the talk with Harry. Six days until their next single. Nine days until their ten year anniversary. Gosh, the time is really flying.

After around two hours of doing nothing, Louis finally decides to be productive. He goes on Twitter. His feed is buzzing with the new single. It’s finally time to see what the fans think of their new song. He taps the touchscreen a few times until he’s taken to his mentions. As suspected, a majority of them are about the song.

He decides to respond with something simple and straight. A nice little thank you to the fans.

He smiles at his tweet as he looks through some of the other comments on the song. Now, he may not be a publicist, but it all looks pretty good to him. He suspects articles are being written up right at this second, all giving their own opinions on One Direction’s new sound. He knows the other guys have tweeted as well, thanking the fans for all of their support over the last ten years. Even Zayn. Louis goes down the twitter rabbit hole for around an hour more before he finally pulls himself away from the phone and leaves it on the kitchen counter. He wanders into the living room this time, and flips the t.v. on. It’s just the news, and nothing interesting is happening. He switches the t.v. to Netflix and decides to just watch the Office for now. It’s not like he has anything better to do.

Louis successfully manages to make it through the afternoon, without even a thought of Harry. It’s mostly because his mind has basically been shut off. He’s sitting on his couch with a beer and watching the Office. Life is good. Or would be. Louis glances over at his phone with a sudden urge to do something. He mentally scolds himself for having such thoughts, but it’s too tempting.

He heaves himself off the couch and retrieves his phone. He makes his way to the twitter app and types in the username quickly, so he doesn’t have any time to change his mind.

The screen takes a moment to load before he’s taken to Harry Styles’ twitter page. Sure enough, there’s a tweet that’s thanking the fans for their support of the single and exclaiming that it’s been a lot of fun. No, that’s not the tweet that surprises Louis. It’s the most recent one that’s there.

For just a slight second, he can’t place the words. Then it hits him. That’s Falling! It is. The first part is. The second part… well it could just be a coincidence. But Louis is 98% sure that Harry has just mixed lyrics from Falling and Strong. He tips his head in confusion. Why would Harry be tweeting this? It’s… well it sure  _ looks _ like a breakup tweet. Have Harry and Kendall called it quits? But something tells him that this tweet is not about that. He knows how much those songs mean to Harry. He wouldn’t quote them for just anyone. And unless something drastic has changed, Louis is fairly sure Kendall Jenner does NOT qualify.

He almost considers actually texting Harry and asking him. But then he remembers the whole ‘not speaking to each other after the big fight’ thing, and decides against it. He could respond in kind with a tweet of his own. But wouldn’t that be too obvious? Plus, Louis doesn’t even know how he’d want to respond. If that tweet, in fact, is for him… then does that mean Harry still wants him? It’s not an entirely unreasonable assumption, but Louis isn’t going to give himself that kind of false hope. He may not be the smartest guy around, but he’s certainly not a masochist. Then of course, if he really wanted to protect himself he’d be running at top speed away from Harry. But dammit, some part of him just won’t let him.

As the evening passes by, Louis finds his mind keeps grinding on the whole Harry tweet situation. It drives him to distraction, and he can’t wait to slip into the solace of sleep. But when rest finally comes, he’s plagued with dreams of Harry and their past life.

Thursday. Thursday morning. Nothing special right? Louis keeps chanting those words in his head as he prepares to host the meeting. He and Harry had settled into an uneasy tension these past several meetings, so they could at least stand the sight of each other. Now, Louis’ stomach is so tied up in knots, he wonders if it was playing Twister. He’s bordering on the same amount of nervousness he’d had for the first meeting. Harry Styles is coming to his house. For the first time, in what seems like forever.

_ Oh, great. Now you’re quoting frozen _ , Louis thinks to himself as he rushes around to clean. He wonders if this new panic that’s directed towards Harry is because of the tweet, or if it’s just simply that Harry’s going to be coming to his house. Louis isn’t quite sure. Still, he makes sure the house is spotless, and if he arranged everything exactly how Harry had liked it, well it doesn’t mean anything. Right?

Liam arrives exactly at two, leaving Louis without a moment to spare. He lets his friend in and directs him toward the living room.

“You seem nervous, mate,” Liam notes as Louis brings in bowls of fruit and some waters.

“Hmm, what makes you say that?” he asks, although his twitching leg is probably a dead giveaway.

“You saw the tweet didn’t you,” Liam slyly states. Louis’ mouth almost falls open at that. How on earth did Liam know that? Is he spying on Louis? Does he secretly have cameras planted in his house? Louis decides he’s going to sweep for bugs after the meeting.

Meanwhile, his dead silence (and not his completely pale, ghost-like features) tell Liam all he needs to know.

“So you did,” he says, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. And Louis hesitates for a fraction too long to make a quip about the whole thing and forget about it.

“Yeah I did,” he admits, flopping down on the chair. “What do you think it means, Payno?” Liam shakes his head in confusion.

“Not a clue, Tommo. One thing I am sure of, it’s not for Kendall Jenner. Harry wouldn’t even quote Stole My Heart for  _ her _ .” Louis has to grin at that. He just has to.

“Who else would it be about?” he quietly asks. Liam goes silent for a few moments, obviously deep in thought.

“I think you know exactly who he wrote those words for,” he finally says. Louis just rolls his eyes. Could Liam be any more dramatic?

“Okay, fine. But if it’s about me, then what does it mean?”

“How should I know? But I do know that those songs are precious to Harry. If he’s quoting them, his emotions must be running pretty high.”

“Why thank you,” Louis dryly states. “Aren’t you the clever psychologist.” Liam narrows his eyes and says, “Be careful, Lou. You’re the one who asked for help.” Louis scoffs, but he also realizes that Liam is right.

“Alright, fine. Whatever. What do you think I should do?” Liam shrugs yet again.

“That’s not really my place.” And, God it’s like pulling teeth trying to get the slightest bit of advice from this man.

“I’m saying it’s your place,” Louis retorts. “Fuck, Liam I don’t know what to do.” HIs voice cracks, betraying the true fear he’s feeling.

“I really don’t know, Louis. I’ve never had a relationship like yours and Harry’s. I’ve… I’ve never fallen in love like that.” His voice goes quiet as he makes the admission.

“Not even with Cheryl?” Louis questions. Liam laughs bitterly and replies, “That was doomed from the start. We were in such different places. We never stood a chance.” Liam pauses for a moment and looks Louis straight in the eyes. “Not like you and Harry do,” he firmly states.

For a moment, Louis is too shocked to respond. Liam seems to be saying that he and Harry have a future. Something that Louis hadn’t ever allowed himself to think very seriously about.

“I… I don’t know,” he finally says. Liam shrugs and pulls his phone out. He taps the screen a few times before he’s showing it to Louis. It’s the tweet. It’s Harry’s tweet. The one that now has over 1.5 million likes. Wow, it might even beat Louis’ tweet. And then it hits him. Twitter! It’s always been like their secret love letter to each other.

“Liam… Liam I gotta find a lyric!” he shouts as he scrambles for his phone. He actually falls over the couch, and does a somersault into the kitchen. He’s running now, and grabbing his phone off the counter as he slides by. He skids across the floor and runs back to a bewildered Liam.

“Come on, a One Direction lyric. Yeah, yeah I need a 1D lyric. Maybe with one of my own. Fuck, Liam you gotta help me.” The other man seems thoroughly confused until Louis stutters out, “Remember the third most liked tweet?” It takes Liam a moment, before understanding dawns on his features and he’s pulling google up on his phone.

“You wanna do a lyric from Something Great?” he asks, showing the lyrics from google. Louis searches through them, but they just don’t fit what he needs right now.

He says, “No. No, I’m not wishing for something great. I already had it.” Liam nods and continues searching. Louis is pacing now, too distracted to actually look for old lyrics.

“How about something from If I Could Fly?” Liam suggests. But Louis is already shaking his head.

“That’s Harry’s song,” he states. “Can’t use it.” He paces some more, searching his brain for the perfect lyric. Harry did a damn good job with his, after all.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna use Strong?” he asks. Louis pauses for a moment, chewing on his lip.

“Harry already used it though,” he says. Liam is about to reply when the sound of the front door opening startles them.

_Please, God, don’t let it be Harry_ , Louis prays. Luckily, it’s not his ex-boyfriend stepping through. It’s Niall. Louis breathes a sigh of relief and flops down on the couch. Niall takes one look at Louis, and gives Liam a questioning gaze. Liam gets up and shows his phone to Niall. Louis can only assume he’s showing the Irish lad Harry’s tweet. Niall’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Louis’ crafting a response,” Liam explains quietly. Within a second, Niall’s face swings from confused to understanding.

“He’s following the pattern of his own lyric and then a 1D lyric,” Liam says as he leads Niall to Louis.

“So far, we’ve vetoed Something Great, and If I Could Fly.” Niall glances between the two of them, seemingly unable to decide who he wants to look at.

Then he says so simply, “What about 18?”

Louis’ head shoots up, and he can practically feel his blue eyes lighting up. Wonderful, terrific, fabulous, all around amazing Niall Horan. He doesn’t even know why he didn’t think of that.

“Niall, you’re brilliant!” he shrieks, already composing the tweet in his head. He rushes to grab his phone, determined to get this thing tweeted before he chickens out. He opens up Twitter and quickly goes to compose a tweet. He’s very aware of Liam and Niall’s proud gazes on him, like he was their son or something. Louis’ fingers are shaking as he types out his tweet on the small keyboard. He takes a deep breath and hits ‘post’ on the tweet. His phone loads for a moment, before it tells him that his tweet was successful. He takes a deep breath and sets his phone down on the table. That tweet may not have been the most responsible choice. But it was the right one.

And on the table, on the small screen, the tweet is still sitting there.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It’s funny how life can change in an instant. For Louis Tomlinson, life has changed in an instant more than once. When he got put in One Direction, when Harry first kissed him, when they broke up… the list goes on and on. Louis really doesn’t even want to think about  _ all _ of the past times.

He glances up from his phone to see Harry on the couch next to him. He has to smile, has to, as he watches the only person he’d ever fallen in love with snuggle deeper into a blanket. It hasn’t even been two months since the now infamous pair of tweets that they had released. Louis smiles softly again as he thinks back to that day. His panic, Liam’s bad advice, Niall being there, and Harry. Harry who had stumbled in the door less than a minute after he had tweeted, having forgotten his phone at home. Louis had wanted to bury himself alive.

The meeting had been stilted and about as awkward as anything. Louis had spent the entire time fidgeting with a pen and not meeting Harry’s eyes. Liam and Niall had exchanged concerned glances the entire time. And by some miracle, Harry had remained oblivious to it all. It really was incredible. Louis smirks as he remembers how Liam and Niall had managed to orchestrate everything. When Louis had been in the kitchen getting snacks, Harry had announced that he would need to head out. Liam and Niall had jumped.

Louis still remembers very clearly getting shoved out of the kitchen and into a room with Harry. Niall had run to lock the door and had wedged a chair underneath so nobody could escape. Liam unlocked his phone with Louis’ tweet still on the screen and then locked him and Harry into one of the many rooms in Louis’ house. After Louis had cursed out Liam with every insult imaginable, he had turned to see Harry picking up Liam’s phone.

“What is this?” Harry asked as his brows furrowed in confusion. Louis gulped nervously. “Um…” he trailed off. Harry was too focused to be paying attention to anything else anyways.

“Is this…? This is… I mean… you… um, you and the whole 18. I…” Harry had stuttered out. Louis would’ve laughed had the situation not been so terrifying.

“I can explain,” he lamely tried to defend himself. Harry had raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Go on,” Harry said, voice cracking like a sixteen year old. Louis had coughed a few times and swallowed hard. “Well, um… well… you see…” he was at a loss for words. He looked down at the screen again. There was going to be no getting out of this. So he’d manned up, found his backbone.

“I wrote it,” he finally managed to spit out.  _ Well, duh _ , he thought to himself.  _ Of course you wrote it, you twit! _ He licked his lips and gave Harry a nervous glance.

“So, you saw my tweet?” Harry had asked. Louis took a small amount of comfort that he wasn’t the only one stating obvious facts like they were new discoveries.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I did.” A wave of panic suddenly surged through his blood. What if that tweet hadn’t been for him? What if it had been for some random ex that Harry had secretly had over the past couple of years? What if Louis had just made himself look like the dumbest person in existence?

“And you, well you responded with this?” Harry had asked, holding the phone out. Louis frowned at that, just a little insulted at his tone. Harry quickly shook his head and laid the phone down on the couch.

“No, sorry no. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?” Louis had boldly asked. Harry flinched and looked down.

“What did you mean by the tweet?” Louis finally asked, tired of beating around the bush. Harry looked up at him in alarm. His green eyes flicked towards Liam’s phone and he looked back into the brilliant blue gaze.

“You’re someone I want around,” he finally admitted. Louis sucked in a breath at hearing that. There it was. Confirmation. Proof. Harry had been speaking to him. He could breathe easier now.

“And I…” his voice cracks for a moment. He clears his throat and steels himself. “And I have loved you since I was 18.” Maybe it’s cheesy, maybe it’s nauseating, but it’s the only thing that Louis knows. He’s had a dramatic side the entirety of his life.

“You have?” Harry had asked in disbelief. Louis smiles as he remembers the pure shock in the other lad’s voice.

“I have,” Louis confirmed, taking a miniscule step forward. Harry tipped his head as his green gaze pierced right through to Louis’ heart.

“And I have loved you since I was sixteen.” Harry almost looked sheepish as he spit the words out. Louis hadn’t been able to contain his smile at hearing those words. “What about Kendall?” he asked, because apparently he just has to ruin every moment. Harry’s shoulders shrugged as he responded, “We broke up. She’s a lovely person, but we couldn’t be anything more than friends. She told me to go after who I really wanted.” Louis’ eyes widened at that.

“So…”

“So…”

“So get over here and give me a kiss,” Harry had demanded. Louis laughed out loud and closed the rest of the distance between them. God it had been so long since he’d truly touched Harry. He felt the solid muscle beneath his shirt and the sharp bones of his neck sticking out.

“Are you sure?” he asked in a quiet voice. He needed just one more confirmation. Harry had rolled his eyes and slammed his lips onto Louis’. It was the most pleasurable bruise he’d ever received. Louis backed up from the force of it and stumbled into the door. Liam had quickly rushed into the room, ready to make sure nobody was killing anybody. Needless to say, Louis and Harry and very quickly kicked out Niall and Liam. They had spent the rest of the day and night re-familiarizing themselves with each other.

Louis grins at the memory, although it also may or may not start to harden certain parts of his body. He glances over at Harry tapping away on his phone. A burst of happiness radiates through his chest yet again. Less than two weeks after that day, Harry had managed to move in temporarily to Louis’ house without any pictures caught. They had decided that because of Covid, it would be best to live together, at least for the time being. Louis finds himself hoping that Harry will never actually get around to moving out anytime soon.

“When are Niall and Liam supposed to get here?” Louis wonders out loud. Harry looks up from his phone and frowns.

“In two minutes. This place is a mess.” He shoots up and begins picking up their (okay fine, Louis’) dirty socks off the floor. Louis just readjusts on the couch and sprawls over the piece of furniture.

“Will you please get the snacks out?” Harry asks, throwing a jacket that covers Louis’ face. Louis’ muffled protests go ignored by his boyfriend and he fumbles to leave the couch. Just as he reaches the kitchen, the doorbell rings.

“Get that please, Lou,” Harry calls from the living room. Louis nods and goes to open it. There, standing on his doorstep, in a Mickey Mouse face mask is Niall. Niall waves hello as he strolls into the house.

“Liam’s right behind me. Or at least he was. He got caught up. Something about stopping for a red light,” Niall shrugs and helps Louis with the bowls of snacks to take out. Louis rolls his eyes fondly at his brunette who really is like his little brother.

“Mm, I might have also invited somebody else,” Niall admits sheepishly as they head into the backyard. Louis squintes through the sun to glare at his friend.

“What part of ‘global pandemic’ do you not get?” he asks sarcastically.

“Why are you so pissy today?” Niall asks jokingly. Louis just throws a handful of chips at him.

“Oi, stop that,” Harry scolds, bending down to pick up Louis’ chips. “I leave you alone for two minutes and you start a food fight?”

“You seem surprised,” Louis quips right back, and slides a hand around Harry’s waist.

“Ah, you two are still so cute together,” Niall gushes as he pulls his phone out and snaps a picture. Louis narrows his eyes worriedly.

“That picture better never get leaked,” he orders. Niall nods earnestly just as the doorbell rings for a second time.

“I’ll get it,” Louis announces, already heading into the house. He walks through a few rooms before he reaches the entrance. He flings the door open, and well, that’s definitely not who he expected to see on the other side.

“I…” Louis shuts his mouth as words evade his mind. He’s speechless, a time to remember really.

“Hey,” Zayn says shyly, and reminding Louis so much of 2010. Louis gulps nervously as Liam climbs the steps behind Zayn.

“Wha-what are you… I mean…” Louis stutters out.

“Can we come in?” Liam asks, fixing Louis with a glare.

“Yeah, of course,” Louis says quickly, stepping back so that the two men can enter. He stares at Zayn in absolute disbelief.

“Hye Lou, what’s taking so-” Harry’s voice cuts off once he sees who Louis is with. “Uh… Zayn…”

“Look I can explain everything. But can we go outside?” Liam prompts. Louis nods, working on autopilot as they head through the house. Niall’s outside, and Louis waits for his exclamation of shock when he sees Zayn, but none is forthcoming. Instead, Niall just calls, “Nice to see ya, Zayn. So you managed to make it.” Louis whips around, eyes bulging out like a frog.

“You knew about this?” he asks, or rather, shrieks. It’s just… he hasn’t seen Zayn in ages. And he wasn’t prepared for the rush of emotions that would arrive with the former bandmate.

“Look, Niall and I were talking a couple of weeks ago. And, well it just didn’t feel right to be celebrating this big anniversary without all  _ five _ members of this band.” Zayn nods again shyly.

“I thought you were in London,” Harry notes.

“I caught a flight out,” Zayn quietly responds. He seems just as uneasy as Louis and Harry. “Liam told me that we should all spend some time together. And I wanted to congratulate you two. I’m really happy for you.” Louis exchanges a look with Harry, unable to process all of this stuff. He is a simple minded lad! This is all too much for him.

“Well we’re really glad you can make it,” Harry says, and Louis can hear genuine happiness in his voice.

“We’re all almost thirty,” Zayn murmurs. “And I think it’s time to put the past behind us. No better time than our ten year anniversary.”

“Well, ten years and a few weeks,” Niall puts in happily.

“Yeah, anyways, I know we had some problems. And no party here is blameless. But we also had something between us. And I don’t wanna continue hating each other over stuff we did as kids.” Zayn looks down, and everybody else turns to Louis. Louis swallows as nervous tension fills his chest.

“Me too,” he finally manages to croak out. “Look Zayn, we both did some shitty things. And I’m not saying all is forgiven, but you’re right. We should at least try.” Zayn nods and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“So, are all just gonna stand here awkwardly?” Niall eventually asks. “Because I’m getting a little hungry.” Louis laughs, a relieved laugh, and sits down in one of the chairs next to Zayn.

“So, are you and Harry back for good?” Zayn asks quietly. Louis glances over to his boyfriend and he can’t help the warm flush that spreads through his chest.

“We’re older now,” Louis responds. “We’re not twenty anymore. We’re looking at this as the relationship now.” Zayn nods his approval. Louis looks around the circle that they’ve formed and realizes just how true his words are. They aren’t twenty anymore. And it’s evident. Liam, who’s finally begun to find himself in music, who’s a father now, who now has a shot at forever with Maya. Niall, who started out as a little Irish boy that became a man with a career, who developed confidence over the years to strike out on his own and become a damn good musician. Zayn, a shy but sweet boy with a powerhouse of a voice who took his destiny in his own hands and found the future he wanted. And Harry. Sweet curly Harry. The one who had evolved from Louis’ best friend to Louis’ whole world, who would hopefully be with him until the day he died.

_ This isn’t so bad _ , Louis thinks as he looks around the people who know him so well. Who have been through what he’s been through. Who know him, really really know him. Right then, right then was as close to perfect as he can get it.

Sorry for the delay, I thought I had posted this and turns out I didn’t (oops). But here y’all go. Let me know if you want one extra fuzzy Larry chapter

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is my first story on this site, please be kind. Reminder, sure I'm a fan of One Direction but I don't know everything about the boys and I won't pretend I do. Please correct me if I get things wrong, nicely. Otherwise, enjoy!!


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